Love is neither an emotion nor a feeling; rather, it’s an attachment and state of mind. Love brings with it some of the most striking and powerful physiological changes a body can experience, which is part of why it affects us so deeply. Its main components (lust, attraction and attachment) flood the limbic system with actual drugs (epinephrine, norepinephrine, opioids, oxytocin and vasopressin) producing sweaty hands, increased heart rate, a morphine-like high, and a sense of well-being and safety. Love increases blood flow to the brain and lights up the nuclear accumbens, a pleasure center.
Sadly, happiness isn’t our natural state; humans have a natural negativity bias, having been vulnerable animals trying to survive in a dangerous world who needed to anticipate worst-case scenarios. Happiness correlates with a higher volume of gray matter in the brain areas of self-reflection and meditation; happy people are literally more able to recognize and appreciate positive events. They savor the good and don’t dwell on the bad.
Hate yourself for cheating? Our frontolimbic system ad anterior temporal lobe, housing strong emotions, weighs our behavior against that of others and decides what’s acceptable. Strong negative emotions need a place to be placed, so that blame isn’t placed on oneself.
When in love, jealousy is the evil twin. The anterior insular cortex quiets when we envy, lessening empathy…we literally care less for people we believe have beaten us.
Altruism is, happily, our default state; it takes inhibition to create selfishness. But some people’s brains get excited by rule-obeyers, firing in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (center of inhibition) and middle temporal gyrus (center of creativity)…they’re smelling opportunity and trying to find ways to exploit the situation.
What is hate’s value? Why hasn’t it been evolved away? Because hate circuitry is valuable in the brain; it preserves cohesion of social groups. To hate outsiders is to bond internally, unfortunately.