What is oxytocin?
You know those warm and fuzzy feelings you get when you cuddle a puppy, hug your friend, or kiss your partner? That’s oxytocin at work.
You may already have heard of oxytocin—what people have called the love hormone, cuddle hormone, or even the moral molecule. This is because oxytocin has been in the headlines, gaining a reputation for making people more trusting, generous, and even more in love. It’s a neuropeptide, meaning that it’s a protein-like molecule your brain cells use to communicate with each other. Oxytocin is also a hormone, meaning that the brain releases it into the bloodstream to communicate with the body.
Clearly, this little brain chemical has some big jobs—it plays a role in sex, childbirth, bonding, social interaction, emotions, and many other functions important to us mammals. Our brains produce it naturally, but there's also synthetic oxytocin that is sometimes used therapeutically.
Either way, oxytocin seems to not only nudge us towards more pro-social behavior, but it can also play tricks on our minds. Let’s look at some ways that this complicated brain chemical affects the way we feel and act, and how we can coax the brain to release more of it for those warm, fuzzy feelings:
Oxytocin probably helps people to bond through openness, trust, and generosity
Oxytocin got its glowing reputation as the “love hormone” from the evidence that it seems to help us be more pro-social, more connected with others. For example, one fascinating study found that when male college students got a dose of oxytocin from a nasal spray, they were more willing to share their emotions about a painful memory with a stranger than participants who got a placebo spray.
People not only seem to trust strangers more with their emotions but also with their money when they get a dose of oxytocin.
People not only seem to trust strangers more with their emotions but also with their money when they get a dose of oxytocin. A separate study had participants play an investment game where they could entrust any amount of their money tokens to another participant, a trustee. Those who sniffed an oxytocin spray were much more likely to let the trustee hang onto their tokens. Most of this group handed over most or all of the money. In contrast, those who only got a placebo spray were less willing to trust a stranger. Only one-fifth of them handed over all of their tokens.
What about straight-up giving money to a stranger? Oxytocin might make a person more generous, too....
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