Four areas of study, each with stated limits.
IHE studies how decisions, emotions, relationships, and attention develop. For each area and each framework we publish what we study, the evidence we build on, and what we do not claim.
What we study, and where we stop.
Behavior and decisions
How biological tendencies, environmental cues, and learned patterns combine when we make decisions.
Builds on evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience.
We describe tendencies: human behavior has recognizable patterns and still resists full prediction. Any stronger claim would outrun the evidence.
Emotional regulation
How people learn to understand, modulate, and integrate emotion, with methods adapted from CBT, DBT, and ACT as preventive training.
Builds on established therapeutic research and contemplative practice, applied the way exercise applies to health: skills anyone can train, with no diagnosis required.
This is preventive skill-building. It does not replace psychotherapy or psychiatric care, and when someone needs a clinician, we say so and refer them.
Relationship science
What makes a partnership durable, healthy, and good for both people, and how adults can choose a partner deliberately.
Builds on Gottman Institute research, attachment theory, Eli Finkel's work (including the suffocation model of marriage), and longitudinal studies that follow couples for decades.
No matchmaking, no genetic matching, no reproductive advice, and no positions on reproductive policy. The decision always belongs to each person.
Cognitive skills
How attention, perception, judgment, and metacognition grow stronger with structured practice. MindWorkIn, our pilot program, works in this area.
Builds on cognitive psychology and learning science, with outcomes measured through calibration tests and cognitive tasks.
No promise of a limitless mind. The pilot will measure four declared outcomes: decision clarity, attention regulation, metacognitive accuracy, and well-being.
Three frameworks, with their limits in writing.
Perceptual Practice Framework
A structured approach to perceiving your own thoughts, surroundings, and experience more accurately and less reactively.
Noticing · Sourcing · Calibrating
Built on Bayesian reasoning, the Stoic tradition, and cognitive science.
It is not a complete philosophy of mind, not a claim that perception is the only thing that matters, and not a replacement for therapy.
Emotional Architecture Framework
Emotional life treated as a skill domain. Emotions are signals to read, patterns to understand, and capacities to develop.
Recognition · Regulation · Inquiry · Integration
Built on CBT, DBT, ACT, emotion-focused therapy, and affective neuroscience.
It does not claim emotions are fully controllable, it does not replace clinical mental health care, and it carries no political program.
Intentional Partnering Framework
A research-grounded framework for adults considering long-term partnership, focused on clarifying values, knowing yourself, and deciding deliberately.
Values articulation · Self-knowledge · Compatibility evaluation · Communication skill · Decision discipline
Built on Gottman research, attachment theory, and decision science.
It is not a genetic-matching system, not a reproductive program, not a matchmaking service, and it makes no claim that romance can be eliminated or partnership reduced to a checklist.
The rules every study will follow.
Independent ethical review
Each study will run under the supervision of a university's institutional review board (IRB), and our Independent Ethics Committee will review every protocol before and after launch.
Methods registered in advance
We will register methods publicly before results come in, so nobody, us included, can move the goalposts afterward.
Negative results will be published
We will publish what we find, including results that do not favor us.
IHE Whitepaper Series
Five foundational papers on how IHE approaches attraction, bonding, and loss: what the evidence shows, where it is contested, and what remains unknown. Each paper defines its terms, grades its evidence, states its limits, and lists its references.
These whitepapers synthesize and evaluate published research and report no original data. They have not undergone external peer review. They are published openly so that researchers and practitioners can examine, cite, and challenge them; corrections are welcome at hello@ihe.institute.
IHE-WP-01 · Published October 2026 · Version 1.0
Foundations of Seduction Science
A Multilevel Framework for Attraction, Bonding, and Relationship Loss
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This paper sets out the conceptual foundations of the IHE whitepaper series on seduction, defined here as consensual, communicative behavior by which one person seeks to elicit or increase another person's romantic or sexual interest. Its purpose is to replace a set of confident popular claims (that attraction is predictable, that courtship cues are universal, that attachment style is fixed in childhood, and that heartbreak is the same as drug withdrawal) with a framework that can be tested. The approach is a structured narrative review organized around four levels of analysis: biological, psychological, dyadic and sociocultural, with explicit propositions about how the levels interact. Each major thesis is presented with its best supporting evidence, its strongest objection and a graded verdict. The main position is that attraction and bonding are patterned but only weakly predictable for particular individuals and pairs; that courtship signals are real but noisy, context-dependent and culturally shaped; that adult attachment orientations are moderately stable and open to change; and that romantic loss engages reward-related brain systems that overlap with, but are not identical to, those implicated in addiction. Most people recover from relationship loss without professional help, although some need clinical care. The paper defines its core terms operationally, states what it does not claim, summarizes the evidence in a single table, and proposes a pre-registrable research agenda. Its limits are those of the underlying literatures: small neuroimaging samples, heavy reliance on self-report, and samples drawn mostly from Western, heterosexual university populations.
Keywords: attraction; courtship signaling; attachment; pair-bonding; relationship dissolution; multilevel framework; research ethics
Suggested citation: Institute for Human Evolution. (2026). Foundations of Seduction Science: A Multilevel Framework for Attraction, Bonding, and Relationship Loss (IHE Whitepaper No. 1). Institute for Human Evolution. https://ihe.institute/research#whitepapers
28 pages · 8,200 words · 60 references · English
Download PDF · 420 KB (IHE-WP-01)Download Word (.docx) · 57 KB (IHE-WP-01)IHE-WP-02 · Published October 2026 · Version 1.0
The Neurochemistry of Heartbreak
Evidence, Mechanisms, and Limits of the Withdrawal Hypothesis
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Purpose. Popular and secondary accounts often describe heartbreak as drug withdrawal: deprived of a partner who had become its "supply" of dopamine and oxytocin, the brain enters a neurochemical crash. This paper evaluates that account as a hypothesis. Approach. It reviews neuroimaging of romantic love and rejection, the oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonin and opioid literatures, stress physiology after separation, stress (takotsubo) cardiomyopathy, the debate over whether social and physical pain share neural representations, and longitudinal research on recovery, grading each central claim on a five-level evidence scale. Position. Reward-related brain regions respond to images of a rejecting partner, separation can disrupt stress physiology, and partner bereavement is followed by a short-term rise in cardiovascular risk. These findings support a weak version of the withdrawal hypothesis, in which romantic loss recruits motivational and learning systems that also figure in addiction. They do not support a strong version in which heartbreak is withdrawal, specific neurotransmitters are depleted, or chemical states cause the experience. Human evidence rests on small samples, peripheral hormone measures of doubtful validity, and inference from regional activation to mental states. Most people recover without intervention, and self-concept clarity, rumination and continued monitoring of the former partner are better studied correlates of recovery than any neurochemical marker. Limits. Samples are mostly young, Western and heterosexual, and causal human evidence is scarce. The paper closes with implications for preventive education, guidance on when to seek clinical care, ethical considerations, and a research agenda.
Keywords: romantic rejection; attachment; dopamine; oxytocin; stress physiology; recovery
Suggested citation: Institute for Human Evolution. (2026). The Neurochemistry of Heartbreak: Evidence, Mechanisms, and Limits of the Withdrawal Hypothesis (IHE Whitepaper No. 2). Institute for Human Evolution. https://ihe.institute/research#whitepapers
27 pages · 7,900 words · 60 references · English
Download PDF · 366 KB (IHE-WP-02)Download Word (.docx) · 55 KB (IHE-WP-02)IHE-WP-03 · Published October 2026 · Version 1.0
Evolutionary Imperatives in Human Seduction
Mating Strategy, Signaling, and the Limits of Adaptationist Inference
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This paper evaluates what evolutionary theory can and cannot contribute to the scientific study of consensual courtship, which the IHE whitepaper series calls seduction. It examines a common popular account that presents seduction as a fixed adaptive system governed by unchanging evolved mechanisms and divided into distinct male and female strategies. The approach is a structured review of the primary literatures on sexual selection and parental investment, sexual strategies and strategic pluralism, cross-cultural mate preferences, stated versus revealed preferences, signaling theory, facial attractiveness, jealousy, pair-bonding, ovulatory-cycle effects, and same-sex attraction. Each thesis is presented with its best supporting evidence, its strongest objection, and a graded verdict. The main position is that evolutionary theory is a productive source of hypotheses about human courtship, and that some findings are robust, notably cross-cultural sex differences in stated preferences for partner age, attractiveness and resources. Many popular claims, however, are weaker than usually presented: stated preferences predict in-person attraction poorly, sex differences are mostly moderate and overlapping, several signature findings (ovulatory preference shifts, symmetry effects, forced-choice jealousy differences) have shrunk or failed under stronger methods, and human mating systems vary with ecology and culture. The paper sets out the methodological limits of adaptationist inference, including untestable ancestral scenarios, unrepresentative samples, and the naturalistic fallacy, and closes with ethical considerations and a pre-registrable research agenda. It describes tendencies, not laws, and offers no reproductive or relationship prescriptions.
Keywords: sexual selection; parental investment; mate preferences; signaling theory; pair-bonding; adaptationism; evolutionary mismatch
Suggested citation: Institute for Human Evolution. (2026). Evolutionary Imperatives in Human Seduction: Mating Strategy, Signaling, and the Limits of Adaptationist Inference (IHE Whitepaper No. 3). Institute for Human Evolution. https://ihe.institute/research#whitepapers
26 pages · 7,900 words · 60 references · English
Download PDF · 373 KB (IHE-WP-03)Download Word (.docx) · 55 KB (IHE-WP-03)IHE-WP-04 · Published October 2026 · Version 1.0
Human Chemosignals and Olfactory Cues in Attraction
What Is Known, and Not Known, About "Pheromones" in Humans
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This paper evaluates the scientific evidence on chemical communication in human attraction and close relationships. Popular and commercial accounts often assert that human pheromones exist, that they operate below awareness to steer desire and partner choice, and that they can be bought, amplified, or managed. The paper separates three questions that such accounts tend to merge: whether human body odor carries socially relevant information, whether that information influences perception and behavior, and whether any specific molecule meets the criteria that define a pheromone in other animals. It reviews the definitional history of the pheromone concept, the anatomy of human chemosensation (including the vomeronasal organ), the androstene and estratetraenol literature, odor preferences linked to the major histocompatibility complex, menstrual synchrony, emotional chemosignals, partner odor and stress, olfactory memory, and the evidence offered for commercial "pheromone" products. Each claim is graded on a five-level evidence scale. The central position is that human body odor demonstrably carries information about identity, sex, health, and emotional state, and can modestly shift social perception, but that no human pheromone has been conclusively identified, the best-known candidate steroids have not survived rigorous testing, and claims about genetic compatibility, cycle synchrony, and product efficacy are contested or unsupported. The literature is limited by small samples, heterogeneous odor-collection methods, supraphysiological doses, predominantly heterosexual and WEIRD samples, and publication bias. The paper closes with ethical considerations and a pre-registrable research agenda.
Keywords: chemosignals; putative human pheromones; body odor; olfaction; vomeronasal organ; major histocompatibility complex; attraction; emotion
Suggested citation: Institute for Human Evolution. (2026). Human Chemosignals and Olfactory Cues in Attraction: What Is Known, and Not Known, About "Pheromones" in Humans (IHE Whitepaper No. 4). Institute for Human Evolution. https://ihe.institute/research#whitepapers
26 pages · 8,000 words · 60 references · English
Download PDF · 364 KB (IHE-WP-04)Download Word (.docx) · 54 KB (IHE-WP-04)IHE-WP-05 · Published October 2026 · Version 1.0
Seductics: Toward a Probabilistic Framework for Romantic Outcomes
Assumptions, Model Classes, and Validation Requirements
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Purpose. This paper sets out Seductics, the Institute's term for the probabilistic study of romantic outcomes, as a modeling framework whose assumptions can be tested rather than as a predictor. Approach. The paper reviews prior formal models of romantic dynamics, the record of statistical prediction in psychology, and the empirical literature on predicting initial attraction, relationship quality and dissolution. It then analyzes a naive baseline that treats interactions as independent trials, along with composite scoring indices and discrete trajectory typologies, and sets out alternative model classes: discrete-time Markov chains with absorbing states, hidden Markov models, discrete-time hazard models, Beta-Binomial updating, and the social relations model for dyadic data. Worked examples, computed in code with illustrative (not empirical) parameters, show how uncertainty should be reported. Position. The baseline P = 1 − (1 − p)ⁿ assumes independent, identically distributed trials and fails for repeated interaction within a dyad; with heterogeneous or declining per-interaction probabilities it overstates cumulative probability, in one example by roughly a factor of two. Published evidence indicates that relationship-specific initial desire is difficult to predict before two people meet, and that change in relationship quality is largely unpredictable from self-report. Limits. The framework is suited to population-level description, simulation, power analysis and study design. IHE offers no individual-level predictions and no consumer tool. The paper closes with a staged validation roadmap that specifies the results under which the framework, or parts of it, should be abandoned.
Keywords: probabilistic modeling; romantic attraction; relationship dissolution; Markov chains; survival analysis; Bayesian inference; social relations model; prediction; validation
Suggested citation: Institute for Human Evolution. (2026). Seductics: Toward a Probabilistic Framework for Romantic Outcomes: Assumptions, Model Classes, and Validation Requirements (IHE Whitepaper No. 5). Institute for Human Evolution. https://ihe.institute/research#whitepapers
26 pages · 7,900 words · 59 references · English
Download PDF · 432 KB (IHE-WP-05)Download Word (.docx) · 57 KB (IHE-WP-05)
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