Hello and welcome to the psychology podcast with Dr Scott Barry Kaufman where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.

Each episode will feature a new guest who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world

we live in.

Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today's Today we have Helen Fisher on the show. Helen is a research associate in the

Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University and is chief scientific director to the online matchmaking site

match.com. She has written many best-selling books including anatomy of love and

why we love. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me today Helen. I'm delighted. You know I'm a long time

fan of your work and colleague and you know you wrote the forward to the main intelligence book that I wrote with

Glenn and we were so giddy when you agreed to write that you know you should have seen

us behind the scenes were like little teenage boys we both have a crush on you. So let me start by asking why you or how you got

interested in studying the science of love. Were you fascinated with love as a phenomenon as a child?

I'm looking back on it, I think it stems from the fact that I'm an identical twin.

And you know as a child when you're an identical twin everybody

asks you do you like the same food do you do you have the same friends do you have the same

cap in your teeth so long before I knew there was something called the nature

nurture controversy the nature nurture

controversy, the nature nurture argument, I was very busy measuring how much of my

own behavior was biological and how much of it was cultural. And so then I got into

graduate school and at that time of course nobody believed that there was any biology to behavior.

So that was I remember having to once answer incorrectly on an exam. I was supposed to say that there was no biology to behavior.

And of course I said that even though I was an identical twin and I know perfectly

well that there was.

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