I’ve been reading this book titled ‘Mind, Life, and Universe – conversations with great scientist of our time‘. It contains interviews with a bunch of really smart people. The great thing about this book is that it makes science relevant to our lives and not exile it to some esoteric corner of our society. It is a great book and one that I highly recommend everyone to read if they have the time. Actually, you got to make the time to read it.
I found one particular interview with Robert Sapolsky highly interesting because it helped explain why arguments with members of the opposite sex can drag on for so long.
Our limbic system, which is responsible for our emotion and feelings, seems to work faster than the autonomic nervous system. When my girlfriend is angry with me, what happens is that within the limbic system, the part of the brain which deals with emotions decides for her that she is upset. It then tells the rest of the body she is upset – the autonomic nervous system is activated and her heart beats faster, she sweats more.
Now, here is where what William James discovered comes in. He suggests that the brain also takes its cue from the body when deciding what emotions to feel. The brain checks with the body and finds out the heart is racing – the brain infers that the individual is feeling a strong emotion.
So, this is how the loop happens. You make your girlfriend angry. Her brain tells her body to react to the anger. After you apologize, and she accepts it, her brain tells her she is no longer angry, but her body is still in the angry state. You leave the room to go take a piss. During this time, because the autonomic nervous system resets itself to normal state slower than the brain, the rest of the body as opposed to the brain is still angry. The brain checks with the body what is going on and finds out the body is still in angry state, so the brain thinks it must still be angry over something for the body to be angry and so the limbic system kicks in again and now she feels angry all over again.
Here is the thing. On average, the autonomic nervous system for women resets itself slower than that for men.
So now, the argument is finally settled. We know whose fault it is – women’s.
Ian On The Red Dot :: How To Tell If A Girl Will Have Sex With You (This Is More Science Related Than Anything Else) | 25-Feb-08 at 12:34 pm | Permalink
[...] an earlier post, I blogged about why arguments with members of the opposite sex tend to last so long. From the same book, I learned from an interview with Victor Johnston how to tell if a girl will [...]