33 developmental problems can persist for decades: Lucy Le Mare, Karyn Audet, and Karen Kurytnik (2007). “A longitudinal study of service use in families of children adopted from Romanian orphanages.” International Journal of Behavioral Development 31(3): 242–51.
33 estimated to affect 10–12 percent of postpartum moms: Vivian K. Burt and Kira Stein (2002). “Epidemiology of depression throughout the female life cycle.” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 63(7): 9–15.
34 a disorder of the positive emotional system: Aaron S. Heller, Tom Johnstone, Alexander J. Shackman, Sharee N. Light, Michael J. Peterson, Gregory G. Kolden, Ned H. Kalin, and Richard J. Davidson (2009). “Reduced capacity to sustain positive emotion in major depression reflects diminished maintenance of fronto-striatal brain activation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 106(52): 22445–50.
34 less behavioral contingency between the two of you, and less predictability: Adena J. Zlochower and Jeffrey F. Cohn (1996). “Vocal timing in face-to-face interaction of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers and their 4-month-old infants.” Infant Behavior and Development 19(3): 371–74.
34 When synchrony does emerge, odds are it’s laced not with positivity, but negativity: Ruth Feldman (2007). “Parent-infant synchrony and the construction of shared timing: Physiological precursors, developmental outcomes, and risk conditions.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 48(3/4): 329–54.
34 long-lasting deficits that can derail kids well into adolescence and beyond: Lynne Murray, Adriane Arteche, Pasco Fearon, Sarah Halligan, Tim Croudace, and Peter Cooper (2010). “The effects of maternal postnatal depression and child sex on academic performance at age 16 years: A developmental approach.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 51(10): 1150–59.
34 skills vital to developing supportive social relationships: Feldman (2007).
35 Couples who regularly make time to do new and exciting things together … have better quality marriages: Arthur Aron, Christina C. Norman, Elaine N. Aron, Colin McKenna, and Richard E. Heyman (2000). “Couples’ shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78(2): 273–84.
Chapter 3
39 The soul must always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience: Emily Dickinson (1960). The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Edited by Thomas Johnson. Boston: Little Brown.
40 the social engagement system: Stephen W. Porges (2003). “Social engagement and attachment: A phylogenetic perspective.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1008: 31–47.
43 the degree to which your brains lit up in synchrony with each other, matched in both space and time: Greg J. Stephens, Lauren J. Silbert, and Uri Hasson (2010). “Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 107(32): 14425–30. See also Uri Hasson (2010). “I can make your brain look like mine.” Harvard Business Review, December.
43 voice can convey so much emotion: Scherer et al. (2009) and Bachorowski and Owren (2008).
44 Your knowing is not just abstract and conceptual; it’s embodied and physical: Niedenthal et al. (2010).
45 Brain coupling, Hasson argues, is the means by which we understand each other: You might be wondering how Hasson and his team can be so sure they’ve captured communication, a true transfer of information from one brain to another, and not simply matched responses to listening to the same sounds, like hearing your own voice, or the incomprehensible dialogue from a foreign-language film. They ruled this out by having listeners also hear a story in Russian (which none of them understood). In that case, virtually no neural coupling emerged.
45 a single act, performed by two brains: Hasson (2010), p. 1.
45 the insula, an area linked with conscious feeling states: A. D. (Bud) Craig (2009). “How do you feel—now? The anterior insula and human awareness.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10: 59–70.
45 people’s brains come particularly into sync during emotional moments: Uri Hasson, Yuval Nir, Ifat Levy, Galit Fuhrmann, and Rafael Malach (2004). “Intersubject synchronization of cortical activity during natural vision.” Science 303: 1634–40.
46 your awareness expands from your habitual focus on “me” to a more generous focus on “we”: This is work I described in my first book, Positivity (2009). See especially chapter 4.
47 as if to prevent their pain from becoming your pain: Yawei Cheng, Chenyi Chen, Ching-Po Lin, Kun-Hsien Chou, and Jean Decety (2010). “Love hurts: An fMRI study.” Neuroimage 51: 923–29. See also work by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Andrea McColl, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio Damasio (2009). “Neural correlates of admiration and compassion.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 106(19): 8021–26.
47 stifled emotions … can also function as obstacles to positivity resonance: For support for this idea, see work by Iris Mauss and colleagues. It suggests that stifled positivity erodes social connection and thereby limits well-being. Iris B. Mauss, Amanda J. Shallcross, Allison S. Troy, Oliver P. John, Emilio Ferrer, Frank H. Wilhelm, and James J. Gross (2011). “Don’t hide your happiness! Positive emotion dissociation, social connectedness, and psychological functioning.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100(4): 738–48.
48 oxytocin sparked the formation of a powerful social bond between them: Jessie R. Williams, Thomas R. Insel, Carroll R. Harbaugh, and C. Sue Carter (1994). “Oxytocin administered centrally facilitates formation of partner preference in female prairie voles (microtus ochrogaster).” Journal of Neuroendocrinology 6: 247–50. See also work by Mary M. Cho, A. Courtney DeVries, Jessie R. Williams, and C. Sue Carter (1999). “The effects of oxytocin and vasopressin on partner preferences in male and female prairie voles (microtus ochrogaster).” Behavioral Neuroscience 113(5): 1071–79.
48 oxytocin surges during sexual intercourse: Marie S. Carmichael, Richard Humbert, Jean Dixon, Glenn Palmisano, Walter Greenleaf, and Julian M. Davidson (1987). “Plasma oxytocin increases in the human sexual response.” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 64(1): 27–31.
48 a synthetic form of oxytocin, available as a nasal spray, for investigational purposes: Synthetic oxytocin has now been approved for limited investigational use within the United States by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration.
49 a double-blind research design: This is the gold standard in human science: Neither the researchers nor the participants are aware of who receives which nasal spray—the spray with the drug or the chemically inert spray that serves as the placebo control.
49 trusted their entire allotment to their trustee more than doubled: Michael Kosfeld, Markus Heinrichs, Paul J. Zak, Urs Fischbacher, and Ernst Fehr (2005). “Oxytocin increases trust in humans.” Nature 435(2): 673–76.
49 the mere act of being entrusted with another person’s money raises the trustee’s naturally occurring levels of oxytocin, and that the greater the trustee’s oxytocin rise, the more of his recent windfall he sacrificed back to the investor: Paul J. Zak, Robert Kurzban, and William T. Matzner (2005). “Oxytocin is associated with human trustworthiness.” Hormones and Behavior 48: 522–27. Interestingly, the effect of being trusted on circulating oxytocin and monetary sacrifice is far higher if trustees have just had a shoulder massage. See Vera B. Morhenn, Jang Woo Park, Elisabeth Piper, and Paul J. Zak (2008). “Monetary sacrifice among strangers is mediated by endogenous oxytocin release after physical contact.” Evolution and Human Behavior 29: 375–83.
49 more trusting—a whopping 44 percent more trusting—with confidential information about themselves: Moira Mikolajczak, Nicolas Pinon, Anthony Lane, Philippe de Timary, and Olivier Luminet (2010). “Oxytocin not only increases trust when money is at stake, but also when confidential information is in the balance.” Biological Psychology 85: 182–84.
49 sharing an important secret from your life with someone you just met increases your naturally circulating levels of oxytocin: Sz
abolcs Keri and Imre Kiss (2011). “Oxytocin response in a trust game and habituation of arousal.” Physiology and Behavior 102: 221–24. The effect of telling secrets on oxytocin holds unless you are diagnosed with schizophrenia; see Szabolcs Keri, Imre Kiss, and Oguz Keleman (2009). “Sharing secrets: Oxytocin and trust in schizophrenia.” Social Neuroscience 4(4): 287–93.
50 The effects of oxytocin on trust turn out to be quite sensitive to interpersonal cues: Moiri Mikolajczak, James J. Gross, Anthony Lane, Olivier Corneille, Philippe de Timary, and Olivier Luminet (2010). “Oxytocin makes people trusting, not gullible.” Psychological Science 21(8): 1072–74. Likewise, oxytocin seems to especially promote trust with in-group members; see Carsten K. W. De Dreu, Lindred L. Greer, Gerben A. Van Kleef, Shaul Shalvi, and Michel J. J. Handgraaf (2010). “Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 108(4): 1262–66.
50 under the influence of oxytocin, you attend more to people’s eyes: Adam J. Guastella, Philip B. Mitchell, and Mark R. Dadds (2008). “Oxytocin increases gaze to the eye region of human faces.” Biological Psychiatry 63: 3–5.
50 more attuned to their smiles, especially subtle ones: Abigail A. Marsh, Henry H. Yu, Daniel S. Pine, and R. J. R. Blair (2010). “Oxytocin improves specific recognition of positive facial expressions.” Psychopharmacology 209: 225–32.
50 a better judge of their feelings: Gregor Domes, Markus Heinrichs, Andre Michel, Christoph Berger, and Sabine C. Herpertz (2007). “Oxytocin improves ‘mind-reading’ in humans.” Biological Psychiatry 61: 731–33.
50 view people on the whole as more attractive and trustworthy: Angeliki Theodoridou, Angela C. Rowe, Ian S. Penton-Voak, and Peter J. Rogers (2009). “Oxytocin and social perception: Oxytocin increases perceived facial trustworthiness and attractiveness.” Hormones and Behavior 56: 128–132.
50 particularly sensitized to environmental cues linked to positive social connections—for instance, to words like love and kissing: Christian Unkelback, Adam J. Guastella, and Joseph P. Forgas (2008). “Oxytocin selectively facilitates recognition of positive sex and relationship words.” Psychological Science 19(11): 1092–94.
50 the parts of your amygdala that tune in to threats are muted, whereas the parts that tune in to positive social opportunities are amplified: Matthias Gamer, Bartosz Zurowski, and Christian Buchel (2010). “Different amygdala subregions mediate valence-related and attentional effects of oxytocin in humans.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 107(20): 9400–9405. See also: Peter Kirsch, Christine Esslinger, Qiang Chen, et al. (2005). “Oxytocin modulates neural circuitry for social cognition and fear in humans.” Journal of Neuroscience 25(49): 11489–93; and Predrag Petrovic, Raffael Kalisch, Tania Singer, and Raymond J. Dolan (2008). “Oxytocin attenuates affective evaluations of conditioned faces and amygdale activity.” Journal of Neuroscience 28(26): 6607–15.
50 If you were to face these difficulties under the influence of oxytocin, studies suggest: Beate Ditzen, Marcel Schaer, Barbara Gabriel, et al. (2009). “Intranasal oxytocin increases positive communication and reduces cortisol levels during couple conflict.” Biological Psychiatry 65: 728–731. See also work by Markus Heinrichs, Thomas Baumgartner, Clemens Kirschbaum, and Ulrike Ehlert (2003). “Social support and oxytocin interact to suppress cortisol and subjective responses to psychosocial stress.” Biological Psychiatry 54: 1389–98.
50 behaving kindly in these ways also raises your naturally occurring levels of oxytocin, which in turn curbs stress-induced rises in heart rate and blood pressure: Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Wendy A. Birmingham, and Kathleen Light (2008). “Influence of a ‘warm touch’ support enhancement intervention among married couples on ambulatory blood pressure, oxytocin, alpha amylase, and cortisol.” Psychosomatic Medicine 70: 976–85. See also forthcoming experimental work by Stephanie L. Brown, early versions of which she presented in a talk at the Society for Experimental Social Psychology meeting in October 2011 entitled “Prosocial behavior and health: Towards a biological model of a caregiving system.”
51 reduces feelings of depression, and increases your pain thresholds: Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg, E. Bjorkstrand, Viveka Hillegaart, and S. Ahlenius (1999). “Oxytocin as a possible mediator of SSRI-induced antidepressant effects.” Psychopharmacology 142(1): 95–101. See also work by Maria Petersson, Pawel Alster, Thomas Lundeberg, and Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg (1996). “Oxytocin increases nociceptive thresholds in a long-term perspective in female and male rats.” Neuroscience Letters 212(2): 87–90.
51 the mammalian calm-and-connect response: Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg, Ingemar Arn, and David Magnusson (2005). “The psychobiology of emotion: The role of the oxytocinergic system.” International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 12(2): 59–65. See also Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg’s 2003 book written for a general audience, The Oxytocin Factor: Tapping the Hormone of Calm, Love and Healing. New York: Perseus.
51 Human greed, after all, runs rampant and can yield all manner of exploitation: Compelling new insights on the nature of greed can be drawn from new experimental research on social class. See work by Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stephané Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner (2012). “Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 109(11): 4086–91.
51 Oxytocin appears both to calm fears that might steer you away from interacting with strangers and also to sharpen your skills for connection: Anne Campbell (2009). “Oxytocin and human social behavior.” Personality and Social Psychological Review 14(3): 281–95.
51 your gut instincts about whom to trust and whom not to trust become more reliable: Niedenthal et al. (2010).
51 oxytocin has been dubbed “the great facilitator of life”: Heon-Jin Lee, Abbe H. Macbeth, Jerome H. Pagani, and W. Scott Young, III (2009). “Oxytocin: The great facilitator of life.” Progress in Neurobiology 88(2): 127–51.
52 Without such engagement, however, no oxytocin synchrony emerges: Ruth Feldman, Ilanit Gordon, and Orna Zagoory-Sharon (2010). “The cross-generation transmission of oxytocin in humans.” Hormones and Behavior 58: 669–76.
53 When a rat mom licks and grooms her pup, it increases the pup’s sensitivity to oxytocin: Frances A. Champagne, Ian C. G. Weaver, Josie Diorio, Sergiy Dymov, Moshe Szyf, and Michael J. Meaney (2006). “Maternal care associated with methylation of the estrogen receptor-a1b promoter and estrogen receptor-α expression in the medial preoptic area of female offspring.” Endocrinology 147(6): 2909–15.
54 your vagus nerve increases the odds that the two of you will connect: Porges (2003).
55 regulate their internal bodily processes more efficiently, like their glucose levels and inflammation: Julian F. Thayer and Esther Sternberg (2006). “Beyond heart rate variability: Vagal regulation of allostatic systems.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1088: 361–72.
55 better able to regulate their attention and emotions, even their behavior: Stephen W. Porges, Jane A. Doussard-Roosevelt, and Ajit Maiti (1994), “Vagal tone and the physiological regulation of emotion.” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 59(2/3): 167–86.
55 especially skillful in navigating interpersonal interactions and in forging positive connections with others: Kok and Fredrickson (2010).
56 those with higher vagal tone experience more love in their daily lives, more moments of positivity resonance: Kok and Fredrickson (2010).
56 A handful of scientists were invited to a private meeting to brief His Holiness on their latest discoveries about the effects of mind-training: Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, had traveled from his home in Dharamshala, India, to Madison, Wisconsin, to participate in this event held on May 16, 2010, in conjunction with the grand opening of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, run by my colleague, Professor Richard Davidson. This day’s dialogue, as have many of His Holiness’s previous dialogues with Western scientists, was sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute. The exchange inc
luded scientists Dr. Antoine Lutz and Dr. Clifford Saron, in addition to Professor Davidson and myself. Also participating were contemplative scholars Thupten Jinpa, Sharon Salzberg, Matthieu Ricard, and Professor John Dunne.
57 their vagus nerves began to respond more readily to the rhythms of their breathing, emitting more of that healthy arrhythmia that is the fingerprint of high vagal tone: Kok, et al. (in press).
57 Having assets like these certainly makes life easier, and more satisfying: Michael A. Cohn, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Stephanie L. Brown, et al. (2009). “Happiness unpacked: Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience.” Emotion 9(3): 361–68.
58 appears to usher in structural changes in brain regions that facilitate positivity resonance: Pil Young Kim (2009). “The interplay of brain and experience in parental love.” Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering 70 (6-B): 3810.
59 your inflammatory response becomes more chronic, less responsive to cues that a crises situation has subsided: Steve W. Cole (2009). “Social regulation of human gene expression.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 18(3): 132–37.
59 feeling isolated or unconnected to others does more bodily damage than actual isolation: Steve W. Cole, Louise C. Hawkley, Jesusa M. Arevalo, et al. (2007). “Social regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes.” Genomic Biology 8: R189.
60 you orchestrate the messages that your cells hear, the messages that tell your cells whether to grow toward health or toward illness: Of course, other forces are at work as well. You do not hold sole responsibility (or blame) for your health or illness via the emotions you experience. In other words, please do not use this science to blame those who suffer from illnesses for their own fate. For a sharp critique of how science can be misused in this manner, see Barbara Ehrenreich (2009). Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. New York: Metropolitan Books.
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