The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race

by Daniel Z. Lieberman

Most of the time, we mirror the actions of people we’re talking to. If one person touches his face or gestures with his hands, so does the other. But this time it was different. When it comes to dominant and submissive postures, the research participants were more likely to adopt a complementary posture rather than mirror the same posture. Dominance triggered submission, and submission triggered dominance. It didn’t happen all the time, though. A minority of participants mirrored the confederate. Would that have an effect on the underlying relationship? The researchers gave the participants a survey to fill out. They wanted to know how they experienced the interaction with the confederate. Did they like her? Did they feel comfortable with her? It didn’t matter if the confederate took a dominant or submissive posture. Participants who took the complementary posture not only liked the confederates more, they also felt more comfortable with them compared to the participants who mirrored the confederates. Finally, researchers asked the participants a series of questions to find out if they were aware of how they were responding to the confederate. Did they know their posture was being influenced by the posture of the other person in the room? It turned out they had no idea. It all occurred outside of their consciousness. We unconsciously know when someone has a high expectation of success, and we get out of their way. We submit to their will—the overwhelming expression of thei...