Possible Monogamy Gene Found In People

Calopteryx sends in a New Scientist summary of research from Sweden pointing toward the existence of a gene that influences monogamy in men. (The article doesn't mention women, and the study subjects were all men at least 5 years into a heterosexual relationship.) "There has been speculation about the role of the hormone vasopressin in humans ever since we discovered that variations in where receptors for the hormone are expressed makes prairie voles strictly monogamous but meadow voles promiscuous; vasopressin is related to the 'cuddle chemical' oxytocin. Now it seems variations in a section of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in people help to determine whether men are serial commitment-phobes or devoted husbands."

Comments

i don't believe it

[circletimessquare]

monogamy in general seems to be a mirage

there are of course places in the world where polygamy is openly accepted, but in places where monogamy dominates publicly, everyone is polygamous in secret

and i am talking about men AND women. male polygamy gets more attention only because male polygamy is more public, male sexuality full of more bravado. women are just better at keeping secrets

and it makes perfect sense for men and women. men for for the obvious ability to spread more genes, and women for access to more resources, or simply to get better genes in secret than the genes of the publicly acknowledged mate (it has been speculated something like 10% of children before the era of genetic testing were raised by fathers who weren't really their genetic fathers)

i think that any gene that regulates vasopressin simply regulates how discrete or not discrete a male is going about being secretly or openly polygamous

there is just too much incentive, genetically, to spread your seed as wide as possible, no matter what

No Monogamy Gene

[eebra82]

I seriously doubt that humans were holding on to each other for lifetimes before the dawn of religions. After all, the whole idea of staying together forever and ever is all taken from a few books that people wrote hundreds of years ago.

Let's say that we go 10,000 years back. Why would a man not screw around as much as possible? And if love existed, who's to say that it lasted for long periods? I remember reading an article that stated that "love" is a chemical reaction that lasts roughly six months, given or take a couple of months. I guess it's enough time to bond and mate.

Maybe this "monogamy gene" relates to something totally different, but has altered effects because of traditions that have grown with religions?

Re:No Monogamy Gene

[ikkonoishi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-selection#K-selection

Re:Hhhmm,

[geekgirlandrea]

Because which strategy works better would depend on what strategy everyone else in the local population is following. You end up with an stable equilibrium proportion where both strategies work equally well, all things being equal, but if you perturb it slightly the one becomes slightly more advantageous than the other and reproduces faster until the equilibrium is restored.

Re:Great!!! [whatever] Control pills

[sckeener]

Congrats on the impossible to prove otherwise post!

There is no way to prove that your genes are not influencing you.

However since identical twins separated at birth have many mental similarities, I'm going to go with gene's influence you more than you know.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/twins/twins2.htm

statistics have shown that on average, identical twins tend to be around 80 percent the same in everything from stature to health to IQ to political views. The similarities are partly the product of similar upbringing. But evidence from the comparison of twins raised apart points rather convincingly to genes as the source of a lot of that likeness. In the most widely publicized study of this type, launched in 1979, University of Minnesota psychologist Thomas Bouchard and his colleagues have chronicled the fates of about 60 pairs of identical twins raised separately. Some of the pairs had scarcely met before Bouchard contacted them, and yet the behaviors and personalities and social attitudes they displayed in lengthy batteries of tests were often remarkably alike.