麻豆传媒

Read all the articles in Valentine鈥檚 Special

OF ALL the pebbles on the beach, why does one of them end up being the one you want to keep? 鈥淣obody really knows why we fall in love with one person and not another,鈥� says anthropologist Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in New Jersey, an expert on the biology and psychology of love. 鈥淏ut there is a thing called chemistry.鈥�

鈥淣obody knows why we love one person and not another鈥�

So what is 鈥渃hemistry鈥�? Some of the factors are well known: we tend to go for people who are our equals in terms of intelligence and looks, with similar backgrounds and values. But Fisher believes these are not enough. 鈥淵ou could walk into a room of people who are all equally intelligent and attractive, but one of them would still be the one,鈥� she says.

Valentine鈥檚 Day special: The right chemistry

Can science help us rewrite the rulebook on love? Find out in our special report, where we bust some persistent myths on sex, love and lust.

鈥淔actors like intelligence and shared values are only half of the puzzle,鈥� Fisher reckons. The other half, she says, is how your biology influences who you fall in love with.

A handful of biological traits have already been linked to mate choice. We know, for example, that people seem to be attracted to those with a dissimilar immune system (麻豆传媒, 20 December 2008, p 60).

Fisher, though, wanted to understand the role of 鈥渢emperament鈥� 鈥� that innate, biological element of personality you are born with and which stays with you through life.

It seems common sense that personality is involved in our romantic attachments, but the research has been contradictory. While some studies have found that opposites attract, others suggest like attracts like, and still others that there is no correlation at all.

Fisher started with her own model of temperament that she says is more firmly rooted in biology than previous ones. Drawing on a large body of work on the genetics and neurochemistry of personality (麻豆传媒, 9 February 2008, p 36), she divided people into four basic temperament types: explorers, builders, directors and negotiators (see 鈥淔our types of temperament鈥�). Each type is associated with elevated activity in one or two neurochemical systems in the brain which lead to a set of stereotypical personality traits. 鈥淲e all express all four temperaments to some degree, but we express some more than others,鈥� says Fisher. 鈥淚鈥檓 a builder and an explorer.鈥�

Next, Fisher and her colleagues drew up a personality questionnaire designed to work out whether you are an explorer, builder, director or negotiator. By teaming up with the online dating site chemistry.com, they gave the questionnaire to more than 28,000 people and then tracked who was hooking up with who. They found a clear pattern, says Fisher. In a nutshell, explorers are more likely to go for explorers, directors for directors, but builders go for negotiators and vice versa. is now using the questionnaire to match up prospective dates.

Up to now she has only looked at the first flush of love, but Fisher expects the pattern to apply in the long term too: 鈥淚鈥檓 confident that looking at initial attraction tells you something about long-term attraction.鈥�

This isn鈥檛 a hard-and-fast rule, says Fisher, but it is the strongest evidence yet that what we call chemistry is partly down to our biology. She will submit her findings to a peer-reviewed journal.

To learn more about temperament types and what they mean for finding 鈥渢he one鈥�, go to

Read all the articles in Valentine鈥檚 Special