warm feelings help to build your baby's mid-brain CLICK to read story!
“Long-lasting marriages may thrive on love, compromise and increasing ignorance about one another. Couples married for an average of 40 years know less about one another’s food, movie and kitchen-design preferences than do partners who have been married or in committed relationships for a year or two, a new study finds.”
Laura’s comment: it is difficult to compare relationships that have lasted only a year or two with those of 40 years.
” Magicians rely on misdirection — drawing attention to one place while they’re carrying out their tricky business somewhere else. It seems like people with autism should be less susceptible to such social manipulation. But a new study in the U.K. finds that people with autism spectrum disorder are actually more likely to be taken in by the vanishing ball trick, where a magician pretends to throw a ball in the air but actually hides it in his hand.”
“Motherhood may actually cause the brain to grow, not turn it into mush, as some have claimed. Exploratory research published by the American Psychological Association found that the brains of new mothers bulked up in areas linked to motivation and behavior, and that mothers who gushed the most about their babies showed the greatest growth in key parts of the mid-brain.”
3 Comments
mkorp · October 24, 2010 at 12:40 pm
The article regarding motherhood and increase in brain size is extremely interesting. The idea that an increase in hormones (oxytocin, estrogen) could shape the brain is fascinating. This also makes me wonder if because oxytocin could play a role in shaping the brain, the brain does something similar when somebody enters into a new relationship and experiences that closeness that is associated with oxytocin. This might mean that with every new friendship or relationship we enter, we could be helping to shape our brains.
clwarren · October 24, 2010 at 6:52 pm
The “getting to know you” article on new versus old relationships and how knowledgeable each partner is on the other is very interesting! But I do agree with your opinion that it is very hard to compare a young couple with veteran partners. 🙂
I STRONGLY disagree with Hertwig’s opinion on the resulting differences when he says, “It’s also possible that older couples in the new study come from a generation in which men and women generally knew less about each other to begin with than couples do today”. I think that’s completely wrong and has nothing to do with generational reasons. I think the reason why new couples are more familiar with their partners preferences is simply because it’s around that time in a relationship where the other person is still new enough to where you actually CARE about their favorite foods and what couch they want to decorate the living room with. Although older couples could not tell you these things, I bet they COULD answer more efficiently their partners parents’ information, or what their child is allergic to…
In the end, older couples know less information about their significant other than newer couples because they’ve begun to care more about those others around them that stem from their partner. Newer couples are very focused on one another and knowing every insignificant detail…
That was my rant. :] As you can tell, I enjoyed the article.
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