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

Re:If memory serves me correctly...

[ultramk]

It's released a lot of times... usually during intimacy.

it's released:
- during sex
- when a mother holds her baby
- when nursing
- when two people are holding each other

I had a professor who called it "the Cuddle Drug". It's been thought to play a major part of the "bonding" process, parent/child as well as romantic relationships.

And no, it's not Oxycontin, which is a completely different thing.

m-