Love through a scientific lens: Our true capacity to connect

Positive emotions expert, social psychologist Barbara Fredrickson has some advice for all of us. It’s time to upgrade our view of life’s most powerful emotion—love! In her new book Love 2.0, she defines love as micro-moments of connection between people, even strangers. Experienced fully, these mini-moments nourish our mental and physical health and deepen our understanding of ourselves and others.

Dr. Dan Gottlieb talks with Fredrickson about our capacity for connection, at a time when many of us are expanding the way we reach out to one another through social media tools. We’ll also hear from Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are.

Barbara Fredrickson is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology and award-winning Director of the PEP Lab at the University of North Carolina. She is known for her broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. It describes how your positive emotions were sculpted by Darwinian natural selection. She has twice been invited to brief the Dalai Lama on her research.

Carlin Flora was on staff at Psychology Today magazine for eight years, most recently as Features Editor. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Columbia University School of Journalism and has written for Discover, Glamour, Women’s Health, and Men’s Health, among others. She has also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, Fox News, and 20/20. She lives in Queens, New York.