A related chemical in the brain, a protein called arginine vasopressin, has also been found to regulate affiliation, sociability, and courtship. If you think your social behaviors are largely under your conscious control, you’re underestimating the role of neurochemicals in shaping your thoughts, feelings, and actions. To wit: There are two species of prairie voles; one is monogamous, the other is not. Inject vasopressin in the philandering voles and they become monogamous; block vasopressin in the monogamous ones and they become as randy as Gene Simmons in a John Holmes movie. Injecting
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