How does love help us survive?
Dr. Anna MachinLove can make us act against logic and reason. It can make us irrational. It can make us forget about our own best interests, or even risk our own safety. Why have we developed such a strong instinct to love, when in so many ways it would be easier not to?
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In order to survive, humans have to exist within a hierarchy, compete for resources and cooperate between the sexes - the most complex cooperation of all. Ideally, we would be solitary. So what has evolution come up with to make sure we start and then invest in our survival-critical relationships? Love.
We are the most cooperative species on the planet in terms of the number of ties we have, the context of those ties and their enduring nature. We need to cooperate to subsist, to raise our children and to learn, but cooperation is costly and stressful - possibly even life-threatening - because people lie, cheat and steal.
Evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Anna Machin is fascinated by what makes humans behave the way they do, and uses a full range of disciplines and techniques – from genetic analysis to experimental psychology - to find out. Anna joins us in The Garden to explore the origins of love.
Read this talk's transcriptTalk outline
50 minutes
30 minute talk
20 minute Member Q&A
Anna started her career as a primatologist in zoos around Europe. Today, she's an evolutionary anthropologist, and is world-renowned for her pioneering work on human love and fatherhood.
Thank you notes from Garden members
How does love help us survive?
How does love help us survive?
Love Collection
Love has been variously described as an emotion, a verb, a drug, or even a mood disorder. It motivates us to do things that go against logic, sense and self-preservation. We're bringing you some new ways to think about this most human of instincts.Love can make us act against logic and reason. It can make us irrational. It can make us forget about our own best interests, or even risk our own safety. Why have we developed such a strong instinct to love, when in so many ways it would be easier not to?
When it comes to love, all the mystery, all the poetry and all the complex behaviours that lead to the most life-changing decisions we’ll ever make are driven by just a few molecules in our brains. What's the science of attraction, and can we fake it?
Romeo and Juliet are often held up as the romantic ideal, willing to risk it all for their one great love. But if Shakespeare really agreed that this is what true love looks like, why are so many of his favourite couples distinctly... middle-aged?
