Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

These early attachment experiences, dozens of human studies show, lay the foundation of the capacity to connect: Mario Mikulincer and Philip Shaver have been the leading scientists in extending Bowlby’s theorizing to adult human relationships. Mikulincer and Shaver, “The Attachment Behavioral System in Adulthood: Activation, Psychodynamics, and Interpersonal Processes,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 35, ed. Mark P. Zanna (New York: Academic Press, 2003), 53–152, and Attachment Patterns in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (New York: Guilford Press, in press).

People who report a sense of secure attachment perceive their partners to be a steady source of support and love: Nancy Collins was one of the first to do the difficult empirical work of applying Bowlby’s claims about attachment to the processes of intimate romantic relations. N. L. Collins, “Working Models of Attachment: Implications for Explanation, Emotion, and Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71 (1996): 810–32; Collins and B. C. Feeney, “A Safe Haven: An Attachment Theory Perspective on Support Seeking and Caregiving in Intimate Relationships,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (2000): 1053–73.

And as life progresses: For an excellent summary of the life-courses of people with different attachment styles, see Mikulincer and Shaver, “The Attachment Behavioral System in Adulthood.”

A quick study of a morning in such a house: ibid.

When Chris Fraley and Phil Shaver surreptitiously observed romantic partners as they said good-bye in airports: R. C. Fraley and Shaver, “Airport Separations: A Naturalistic Study of Adult Attachment Dynamics in Separating Couples,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75 (1998): 1198–1212.

Anxiously attached individuals are more likely to interpret life events: Mikulincer and Shaver, “The Attachment Behavioral System in Adulthood.”

And bonobos wage: de Waal, “Bonobo Sex and Society.”

is our love of meat: Ridley, The Red Queen, 190.

win in the game of sperm competition with other males: ibid. 213–16.

the same was happening in human evolution: Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun?, 72–93.

pole dancers earn bigger tips: G. Miller, J. M. Tybur, and B. D. Jordan, “Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus,” Evolution and Human Behavior 27 (2007): 375–81.

The specific language of desire: For superb descriptions of the language of flirtation, see D. B. Givens, Love Signals: How to Attract a Mate (New York: Crown, 1983); T. Perper, Sex Signals: The Biology of Love (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985); Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Love and Hate: The Natural History of Behavior Patterns, trans. G. Stracham (New York: Schocken, 1974), chap. 3.

These brief signals honor time-honored principles in the game of sexual selection: For an excellent account of the evolution of beauty, see Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (New York: Doubleday, 1999). For a more general treatment of how sexual selection processes have led to the evolution of a broader array of behaviors, from humor to music, that bind women and men together, see Miller, The Mating Mind.

offset by a man of means: David Buss has done controversial and groundbreaking work on how the preferences for beauty and resources shape the mate selection preferences of men and women, respectively. Buss, The Evolution of Desire.

This kind of behavioral synchrony creates a sense of similarity, trust, and merging of self and other: Elaine Hatfield, John T. Cacioppo, and Ronald L. Rapson, Emotional Contagion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

courtship behaviors stimulate the biology of reproduction: Ridley, The Red Queen, 81–82.

A metaphorical switch in the mind is turned on: These metaphors of love have been documented by George Lakoff and his colleagues in their work on metaphor. The nature of these metaphors closely tracks our experience of romantic love—the voice or rationality is diminished, we feel out of our minds. Clearly the mind is aiding in promoting the kind of devotion required of long-term intimate bonds. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By; Lakoff, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things; Kövesces, Metaphor.