Trust in a Bottle

flosofl writes "The BBC has a report on oxytocin and its ability to skew our trust levels. 'The participants in the study played a game, in which they were split into "investors" and "trustees." The investors were then given credits and told they could chose whether to hand over zero, four, eight or 12 credits to their assigned trustee.' Some of the investors were given oxytocin via nasal spray. The results were surprising: 'Of 29 investors who were given oxytocin, 13 (45%) displayed "maximal trust" by choosing to invest highly, compared to six (21%) of the 29 investors who were given the dummy spray.' When the trustee was a computer, there was no difference between the two test groups."

Comments

"Control" group?

[drsmack1]

When the trustee was a computer, there was no difference between the two test groups."

Except they were *way* cooler....

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[drsmack1]

Oxytocin scented heavy duty condoms; sold at truck stops everywhere!

Re:Too Small of a Test

[Joe Random]

For this to really be worked out you need to do multiple test on a much larger scale.

Trust me, 29 people is more than enough to obtain statistically-significant results. Now where's my Oxytocin....

Re:Such Hogwash

[Anonymous Coward]

That's oxycontin -- we're talking about oxytocin.

Different thing altogether.

Although with a jar of both I imagine you could have a heck of a party.

At the end of which, (wait for it), you'll probably need some OxyClean.