Aspen Ideas To Go

What is it that pulls one person toward another, and connects them? What does love and attraction do to our brain, and vice versa? Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher has been studying questions of love and relationships for over 40 years. Through detailed data collection, research questionnaires and even brain scans, she has collected massive amounts of information on the topic, and identified four main styles of thinking that guide a person’s behavior and lovelife. Fisher is the chief scientist for Match.com, and a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute. In this 2017 interview from the Aspen Ideas Festival archives, Atlantic writer Olga Khazan talks to Fisher about why love takes so many different forms and trajectories, and looks so different for all of us. They cover attraction, romantic love, slow love, divorce, adultery and what keeps love alive.