effects of oxytocin on trust lit review

The Effects of Oxytocin on Trust

THE EFFECTS OF OXYTOCIN ON TRUST

Jamie Brown

The Pennsylvania State University

According to past and present research trust has been pinpointed as a characteristic,

which shapes all aspects of human life. In particular, recent research done by Zak and Knack

(2001) has identified three categories of society that show the necessity of trust for success in

economics, politics and social interactions (p.317). Everyone can recall instances in, which they

used trust in an individual, a group or event to help make a decision or to contribute to their

decision process. Trust as a social construct can be witnessed to start to shape from the time of

infancy through attachment to one’s mother, which then starts to shape the world around as one

of either trust or mistrust as diagrammed by Erik’s first stage in his model of psychosocial

development. Trust from this point on seems to peek its way into all major social aspects of life.

For instance, trust is used in relying on the cooperation of a fellow group member. Without trust

of a certain degree group members will not rely on other members to uphold their designated

duties, thus the individual will not consider working with group members in the first place. In

the case of a goal that needs a group in order to be accomplished, this goal will not be

accomplished due to lack of trust, which kept the working group separated. Trust is thereby

needed for a successful society due to how heavily interwoven this construct is in human nature.

Trust researchers for years have tried to find a reason for why humans trust. Recently

these researchers have been able to find that trust is positively correlated to the stress hormone

oxytocin. Some of these researchers, such as Fehr and Fischbacher et al (2005), have come to

confirm this finding as true. Fehr and Fischbacher et al have found that oxytocin release in

stressful situations or through intranasal administration can affect the degree of trust a person has


towards a specific situation (p.674). One factor in particular that came into play with the degree

of trust in someone or something is whether or not there is risk involved at all (Fehr et al, 2005,

p.674). Another factor that is agreed upon is if there is a reward for the risk and there is a reward

then the value of the reward also a factor (Fehr et al, 2005, p.674). Also Bakermans-

Kranenburg & Van Ijzendoorn et al (2011) have found that group dynamics are a factor in terms

of in-group versus out-group relations as clear reason between placing trust in an individual or

group (p.440). Still there are more concepts of trust that are correlate with oxytocin release, such

as betrayal aversion and the “tend and befriend” response to stress which each show a positive

relationship with oxytocin.

So then can we confirm that oxytocin’s effect on trust is significant? Fehr and

Fischbacher et al would certainly confirm this after their findings in their investor trustee

experiment. The Fehr and Fischbacher group’s major addition to this debate entailed the fact that

oxytocin administration was able to significantly increase trust in individuals. This increase of

trust was shown by whether or not the participant would make a larger monetary transfer to a

project that has small chance to fail or a trustee, who is not guaranteed to return the transfer. In

the case of the transferring to the trustee though if the transfer is returned the additional profit on

top will be greater depending on the initial investment. The experiment was able to show that in

the case of the project the participants given the placebo and the participants given oxytocin gave

similar investments, which were also less than the average transfer in the trustee situation (Fehr

& Fischbacher et al, 2005, p. 674). When dealing with a trustee the effect was that those

participants given oxytocin invested significantly more in the trustee then those given the

placebo (Fehr & Fischbacher et al, 2005, p. 674). This shows that oxytocin played a role in trust

in the situation in which the participants believed they were giving their monetary units to an


individual rather than to a project fund. This evidence observes that possible social interaction

stimulates the effect brought on by oxytocin release. Ahmadi and Burnett et al (2013) agree with

the findings from Fehr and Fischbacher group’s experiment since they were able to acquire a

similar finding in their survey of trust in politics in which their participants were given a

treatment of either placebo or oxytocin then asked to complete a survey on interpersonal trust,

trust in government actors and government institutions. The surveys from Ahmadi and Burnett

et al (2013) work were able to show that the level of trust in people was significantly higher than

political actors as they call government officials depending on party affiliation (p.770). Even in

the case of a participant’s own party affiliated officials trust was reported higher than the

opposing party’s official, but lower then trust of normal people. The piece that integrates

Ahmadi group and the Fehr group is that in the same fashion that the Fehr group observed

participants hold more trust in a person than an organization so did the Ahmadi group, whose

participants saw government officials as just part of their particular branch of government

instead of individually. This recurring finding thus illustrates that a social bond in place

increases the likelihood that oxytocin administration will have an effect on trust since placebo

reports were significantly lower in trusting a person from government or the government as an

institution (Ahmadi & Burnett, 2013, p. 770).

The finding from Ahmadi and Burnett et al that people trusted the regular people

significantly more than the government officials can be tied to in-group and out-group research

as well. Bakermans-Kranenburg and Van Ijzendoorn (2011) would agree with the political

findings because they found that oxytocin increased in-group and out-group trust. This concept

was manipulated via a meta-analysis of intranasal administration of oxytocin as well. Evidence

implies that for the in-group results the oxytocin treated participants were more trusting in their


in-group than the placebo group (Bakermans-Kranenburg & Van Ijzendoorn, 2011, p.441). In

terms of the out-group results, there was no significant difference between the trust level of the

placebo group and the oxytocin treated group, which further confirms that a social bond or some

type of interpersonal relation are a primary factor in oxytocin’s effect on the trust level of an

individual (Bakermans-Kranenburg & Van Ijzendoorn, 2011, p.441). The implications of

research provide the groundwork for exploring the use of oxytocin in interpersonal problems

outside as well as inside the family. The findings of De Dreu (2011) have taken that groundwork

and applied it to the theory of attachment between a mother and child. De Dreu’s research set

out to determine if oxytocin had an effect on individuals who were either high or low on

attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. The findings showed that attachment anxiety was

not significantly affected but that attachment avoidance was (De Dreu, 2011, p. 875). Since

attachment avoidance deals with the fear of dependency and closeness in interpersonal

relationships this finding directly correlates to the matter at hand ( De Dreu, 2011, p.871). In the

test on attachment after individuals were given the oxytocin and placebo treatments they were

randomly paired to perform nonrelated tasks (De Dreu, 2011,p. 873). The results that followed

showed that in terms of attachment avoidance oxytocin had decreased its levels. Participants

were given questionnaires to see if their cooperation had increased or it they were more

comfortable in the interpersonal situation that confirmed this finding (De Dreu, 2011, p.875).

Individuals asserted that they were more motivated to cooperate during the experiment, which

illustrates that effects of attachment avoidance were decreased in combination with betrayal

aversion (De Dreu, 2011, p.875). This finding means that the individuals who were high in

attachment avoidance were able to trust their experiment partner more than they would have

usually because for those participants with high attachment avoidance who took part in the


placebo treatment there were more reports of low trust and lower comfort ability, which revealed

a heightened sense of betrayal aversion (De Dreu, 2011, p. 875).

Now why has intranasal administration known as the dominant testing piece for this type

of testing? Oxytocin is released in the hypothalamus in relation to stress so now we must explore

whether or not oxytocin’s effects on trust are merely due to the additional administration or if it’s

possible the same effects can be originated from regular oxytocin release in the body. Well the

principle that can help divulge the answer of that to us is the stress response termed “tend and

befriend”, which was first used to answer this question by the research of Cardoso and

Ellenbogen et al (2013). The experiment they performed was a social rejection paradigm in

which “tend and befriend” would be present under a regular basis (Cardoso & Ellenbogen, 2013,

p.2800). To accomplish this researchers divided participants into a placebo group and a oxytocin

treatment group, which resulted in the implications that oxytocin, promotes the acquisition of

social support in times of distress (Cardoso & Ellenbogen et al, 2013, p.2803). Cardoso and

Ellebogen et al. also conveyed the conclusion that oxytocin’s effect on trust is augmented by the

experience of distress. This finding thereby confirms that the body can duplicate the effect of

oxytocin administered and vice versa, which means that oxytocin can also stimulate the “tend

and befriend” response.

These findings lead to the inquiry of whether oxytocin will help in mental diseases and

illnesses, which have social implications such as schizophrenia. Ashrafi and Hosseini et al

(2012) have already gone on to research this area of exploration by running a placebo-controlled

oxytocin study on individuals with schizophrenia who took the oxytocin or placebo treatment

along with their usual dosage of Risperidone (p 58). The research implicated that the symptoms

affected by the oxytocin were positive ones, which correlate to a raised level of trusting those


around them. This finding is unlike those of the placebo treatment, which showed slight

improvement that may be caused by the regular dosage of Risperidone, but none as significant as

the participants of the oxytocin treatment (p. 62). One downfall to the findings of Ashrafi and

Hosseini et al (2012) was that the patients reported some adverse effects as a result of the

treatment such as drowsiness, headache, nausea, and increased or decreased appetite, which

could not be disproven as a result of the oxytocin due to the fact that they were not occurring

regularly or reported prior (p.62).

These research implications lead to more knowledge of the use of oxytocin and also

create ways for oxytocin to be tested more in interpersonal or asocial aliments. Trust research

when seen in non-human mammal studies has also showed similar results on positive social

behavior and interactions (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2005, p.873). This finding implies that animal

studies should be continued to find the correlation between them and humans for the fact that it

will open doors to the relationships between humans and animals as well as uncover further

medical breakthroughs that can in turn be used in the betterment of society. There is still much

undiscovered about extent of effects that oxytocin has on an individual. Humans still have yet to

uncover whether or not oxytocin administration can be used for unjust causes as a sort of trust

serum to make an individual over trusting to the point of illogically trusting an individual. It can

also be questioned whether there is a chemical in the body that can be used for the same purpose

or whether the various distributions of oxytocin receptors across the brain play a role in the vast

effects it possesses.


References

Bakermans-Kranenburg, M., & IJzendoorn, M. V. (2012). A sniff of trust: Meta-analysis

of the effects of intranasal oxytocin administration on face recognition, trust to in-group,

and trust to out-group. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37(3), 438-443.

Burnett, G., & Ahmadi, S. (2013). Oxytocin and the Biological Basis for Interpersonal

and Political Trust. Political Behavior, 35(4), 753-776.

Cardoso, C., & Ellenbogen, M. A. (2013). Stress-induced negative mood moderates the

relation between oxytocin administration and trust: Evidence for the tend-and-befriend

response to stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 38(11), 2800-2804.

De Dreu, C. K. (2012). Oxytocin modulates the link between adult attachment and

cooperation through reduced betrayal aversion. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37(7), 871-

880.

Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin Increases Trust In Humans. Nature,

435(7042), 673-676.

Hosseini, S. M., & Ashrafi, M. (2013). Intranasal Oxytocin as an Adjunct to Risperidone

in Patients with Schizophrenia. CNS Drugs, 27(1), 57-65.

Zak, P. J., & Knack, S. (2001). Trust And Growth. The Economic Journal, 111(470),

295-321.

effects of oxytocin on trust lit review

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