Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ReviewSocial effects of oxytocin in humans: context and person matter
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.