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Social effects of oxytocin in humans: context and person matter

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Building on animal research, the past decade has witnessed a surge of interest in the effects of oxytocin on social cognition and prosocial behavior in humans. This work has generated considerable excitement about identifying the neurochemical underpinnings of sociality in humans, and discovering compounds to treat social functioning deficits. Inspection of the literature, however, reveals that the effects of oxytocin in the social domain are often weak and/or inconsistent. We propose that this literature can be informed by an interactionist approach in which the effects of oxytocin are constrained by features of situations and/or individuals. We show how this approach can improve understanding of extant research, suggest novel mechanisms through which oxytocin might operate, and refine predictions about oxytocin pharmacotherapy.

Section snippets

The rise of oxytocin research in humans

The past decade has produced nearly a fourfold increase in published studies on the effects of exogenous oxytocin on social cognition and prosocial behavior in humans 1, 2 motivated largely by research showing that oxytocin is involved in regulating such social processes in animals [3]. The excitement about oxytocin has not been confined to the scientific community: dubbed the ‘love hormone’ (e.g. Alleyne, R., The Telegraph, 23 September 2010; //www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8020464/Oxytocin-the-love-hormone-could-cure-shyness.html

Social cognition

Research shows that oxytocin plays a central role in social recognition in animals (e.g. 15, 16, 17, 18). This research inspired numerous studies examining whether oxytocin has similar effects on social memory in humans 19, 20, 21, 23, as well as studies examining other aspects of human social cognition such as emotion detection 24, 25, 26, 27, emotion recognition or ‘theory of mind’ 5, 28, 29, 30, and empathy, including the vicarious sharing of others’ internal states 29, 31. Several of these

Context as a clue to mechanism

Our review of the human oxytocin literature indicates that the effects of exogenous oxytocin on social cognition and prosociality are more nuanced than previously thought. Of the studies/outcomes tested, 43% indicate no main effect of oxytocin, and 63% report situational and/or individual difference moderators (Table 1). Finally, a sizeable minority show that oxytocin can produce antisocial (i.e. not prosocial) effects under certain conditions. Although differences in the procedure or task can

Implications for oxytocin pharmacotherapy

Preliminary evidence concerning the effects of oxytocin have produced optimism about its potential to improve social cognition in autistic individuals 5, 30, 77, and to facilitate trust and reduce social anxiety in conditions such as social phobia and borderline personality disorder 1, 4, 56, 78. We share this enthusiasm but believe that all such work should be mindful of the variance in extant findings and the idea that oxytocin, although helpful in some contexts, might not be helpful in

Concluding remarks

The research reviewed in preceding sections indicates that the view of exogenous oxytocin as broadly and invariantly improving social cognition or prosocial behavior is incorrect, and could impede progress in understanding the function and potential utility of it in treatment. We propose that exogenous oxytocin can be viewed as altering the basic processing of social stimuli, for example the salience of interpersonal cues that in turn could produce a wide variety of behavioral effects depending

Acknowledgements

The authors thank James P. Curley for comments to an earlier version of this manuscript. Jennifer Bartz has received funding from the National Institutes of Health (HD065276-01) and Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation to investigate the effects of oxytocin on complex social cognition in autism spectrum disorders.

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    These authors contributed equally to this work.

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