Oxytocin, attachment and the shift from self to other

Oxytocin, attachment and the shift from self to other

Blog Article

Background : Accumulating research indicates that oxytocin (OT) plays a key role in human social cognition and behavior.Inspection of the data, however, suggests that the social effects of OT often depend on contextual factors, including person characteristics.For example, some studies show that OT is helpful for avoidantly attached individuals, who are less socially engaged, whereas other studies show that OT exacerbates chronic interpersonal insecurities in anxiously attached individuals, who are preoccupied with closeness.Such variability raises questions about the mechanism by which OT influences human social behavior.

Drawing upon animal research on OT and the other-directed (e.g., maternal) behavior, we propose that OT induces a redken shades eq 07m driftwood similar shift in focus away from self and toward others in humans.This theory would explain some of the person-specific effects of OT since becoming more other- and less self-oriented should be helpful for avoidant individuals who are excessively focused on the self to the exclusion of others, but could be hurtful for anxious individuals who are already overly other focused and have no sense of self.

Methods : Thirty-one males received 24 IU intranasal OT/placebo in a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial and then completed tasks assessing the implicit cognitive accessibility and explicit self perceptions of agency (self orientation) and communion (other orientation).Individual differences in attachment were assessed at baseline.Results : OT significantly decreased the cognitive accessibility of agency (self) and increased the cognitive accessibility of communion (other).Similarly, OT significantly decreased the endorsement of agency traits (arrogant) and increased the endorsement of communal traits (kind, warm, caring).

Critically, this OT-induced shift from self to other differentially affected avoidant and anxiously attached participants, with avoidant individuals, who are generally low in communion, showing the largest increase in communion following OT, but anxious individuals, who are generally low in agency, showing even further reduction in agency/sense of self.Conclusions : These data shed light on the variability in extant research on the social effects of oxytocin viqua-f4 in humans and help explain both the beneficial and potentially harmful effects of OT.