attraction | SiOWfa14 Science in Our World: Certainty and Cont

Attraction Reaction

Wouldn’t it be nice if the girl in your science class thought you were as attractive as you think she is? Or what if the boy who dumped you last year suddenly had a burning desire to be your boyfriend again? Wouldn’t it be lovely if everyone you find attractive found you attractive too? Science is not able to do this yet, but is it a possibility?

Image courtesy of: Austin Carty

The ingredients:

According to the BBC U.K., there are three stages to falling in love. These are lust, attraction, and attachment¹. In order to examine the likelihood of a pill that increases attraction one feels toward another, we are only going to focus on the chemical reactions of the brain in the second stage. During the attraction stage of falling in love, several chemicals are released into the brain. They are: Dopamine, Serotonin, and Norepinephrine¹.

Last year in psychology, I learned that Dopamine is the reward/pleasure chemical of the brain. It is often stimulated by drug usage² but can also be affected by the foods you consume, amount of sleep you get per night, and your exercise³. If chemists already produce artificial Dopamine for anti-depressants, and natural foods can increase Dopamine reception in the brain, then chemists should have no problem making artificial Dopamine strong enough to release sensations of attraction.

Serotonin is a neural transmitter that is in charge of keeping a balanced mood⁴. Like Dopamine, Serotonin can be substituted by different medications and increased by consuming certain foods and vitamins⁵. According to Chatelaine Magazine, being exposed to sunlight also increases Serotonin levels in the brain⁵. It is common knowledge that sunlight gives Vitamin D, so it should be possible for this attraction-pill to contain natural extracts from peppers, oranges, strawberries and other fruits³, as well as artificial vitamins B and D⁵, to help release these hormones in the brain.

Norepinephrine seems like a big sciency word, so just think of it like adrenaline. They both are hormones that initiate the fight-or-flight receptors in the brain⁶. Like adrenaline, norepinephrine causes an increase in heart rate. (This would be the nervous, pounding, butterfly sensation you get when you find someone really cute.) Norepinephrine can also be taken in dosages. It is used to treat people with low blood pressure⁶. If doctors are able to add a small amount of the dosage into our attraction potion, it should be complete!

Why this hasn’t been done yet:

There are several reasons why this science hasn’t been tested yet. First off, it is extremely dangerous to mess with chemical outputs of the brain. A major contribution to drug addiction is assumed to be Dopamine dependence. When drugs are introduced to the body, they greatly increase the production of Dopamine. As the drug abuser continues the use of the drug, the body becomes less able to naturally produce Dopamine². This causes the drug user to become solely dependent on the drug to feel the beneficial effects of Dopamine. If we began to test an attraction pill, the subject may become addicted to the feeling of being infatuated with someone. This could cause the test subject to develop drug dependency. The test subject could also develop mood disorders such as depression and bipolar, because of the lack of Dopamine and Serotonin being released in their brain.

The other reason we cannot scientifically test an attraction pill is because it is unethical. A person has free will to choose whoever he or she wants to be infatuated with. If we begin to drug people in order to get them to like us, it would be an extreme violation of human rights.

Sources:

these are also hyperlinked in the text and they open in a new window so feel free to explore!

In my Freshmen Seminar class, my teacher asked us why we were interested in the traits we look for in the opposite sex. She said that the media shapes the things we look for in potential suitors– that’s the basis of our class. However! I digress and believe that humans are biologically inclined to look for tall men and women with curves. I decided to look further into the matter.

The article I read claims some of my ideas to be true. As a believed product of evolution, women with big “child-bearing” hips, tend to be considered more attractive because they supposedly show fertility. Something I found to be interesting was that who people are attracted to are often affected by their parents. Sounds creepy right? Not necessarily. First, on average, people born to older parents are more attracted to mature faces and vice versa with younger parents. Psychologists have found that people are often more attracted to their opposite sex parent’s hair and eye color. Psychology also shows that people are attracted to that same parent’s personality attributes, the Oedipus Complex.

We are also biologically programmed to look for symmetry in the face– that is a large part of what we are supposed to view as attractive. Studies have also shown that people with dark rings around their irises in the eyes are generally more attractive. We are also programmed to think that deep voices in men are better and the same for higher voices in women. See?! It’s not all just from the media.. Take that Dr. Nichols!

Guys– there’s a reason that us ladies find stubble attractive. It suggests maturity but still freedom and that a more full beard suggests that a man would be a great, caring father. That, I think comes from the media.

SiOWfa14 Science in Our World: Certainty and Cont

The course website and blog for the Fall 2014 instance of Penn State's SC200 course

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