Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

topic posted Thu, May 22, 2008 - 12:35 PM by  VoodooChild
"Oxytocin is a chemical associated with many of the "pleasurable" feelings you have, from basic trust, to love and orgasm. Researchers in Switzerland theorized that people playing social trust games might change their behaviors if given doses of oxytocin, since the chemical might artificially enhance their willingness to trust someone. Indeed, they were right: subjects dosed with Oxytocin were willing to trust people even after they'd been explicitly told that those people had behaved in untrustworthy ways in the past. People who had not been dosed did not trust the "untrustworthy" people."

io9.com/392583/the-tru...ke-social-risks
posted by:
VoodooChild
SF Bay Area
  • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

    Fri, May 23, 2008 - 7:01 AM
    Ah yes, the amount of people who "fall in love" on E and then get married to people they wouldn't trust if they'd met 'em straight tends to provide anecdotal evidence for this tendency....

    Though by all accounts - particularly from daddies - the oxytocin high from having a baby still tops E (or so I've been told but I'm not about to drop a baby just to find out! ;-)
  • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

    Fri, May 23, 2008 - 8:43 AM
    Good reason not to accept any food or drink from Scientologists or Landmark Forum pod people or [insert money-making scam cult here]....

    ;-> I jest (I think...)
    • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

      Fri, May 23, 2008 - 8:48 AM
      Kai - You may think you jest but the Raelians were pretty involved with the local rave scene...
      • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

        Fri, May 23, 2008 - 9:11 AM
        I'd forgotten they were a big Québec phenom... Just did a little Wiki-ing - OMFG! (so to speak. Or perhaps "J.H.F'ing C.")

        You may remember a newspaper article here a year or so ago which speculated on terrorist attacks finally hitting Canada - they imagined not the usual Islamic suspects but instead an obscure cult from the Gaspésie or the Townships somewhere, I forget which, pulling an Aum Shinrikyo number on the Metro...
        • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

          Fri, May 23, 2008 - 9:43 AM
          Well not quite terrorists but The Solar Temple murder suicides are up there for local culty wackiness....a story made all the better by the fact that there were middle management types from Hydro Quebec involved in the cult.
    • Od
      Od
      offline 97

      Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

      Fri, May 23, 2008 - 8:53 AM
      Also good reason not to accept any orgasms from people you don't want to get attached to... Orgasm is a powerful oxytocin releaser.

      Read Helen Fisher's "Why We Love." Or at least an interesting review:

      dir.salon.com/story/mwt/f...1/27/fisher/
      • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

        Fri, May 23, 2008 - 11:01 AM
        Another great book about love... A General Theory of Love, which I love... it's the perfect fit for my own particular brand of geekiness...

        www.human-nature.com/nibbs/02/leo.html

        And, yes, one should be careful about accepting orgasms from strangers.... didn't your mom tell you? ;-)
        • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

          Fri, May 23, 2008 - 1:16 PM
          "And, yes, one should be careful about accepting orgasms from strangers.... didn't your mom tell you? ;-)"

          Nope, but then she was a programmer, not a doctor.

          (Which naturally raises the question - would embodied AI's have orgasms? Just to lurch the topic further off the rails into the pastures of wackyland. I should know better than to have tuned into Battlestar Galactica when those nasty human-form Cylons are whoring it up, and also engaging in monotheism. That ultimate perversion.)
          • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

            Sat, May 24, 2008 - 6:17 AM
            Kai - I guess it would depend on the kinds of bodies you built for the AI....
            • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

              Sat, May 24, 2008 - 1:38 PM
              Yeah, of course, it would depend. I wasn't all that serious.
              • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                Sun, May 25, 2008 - 8:46 AM
                Neither was I... It just made me start thinking about a machine having a clitoris (um, clearly reflexively thinking about girl orgasms...self interest ya know.... ;-)
                • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                  Tue, May 27, 2008 - 10:35 PM
                  One of my favorite blogs:

                  hugthemonkey.com
                  • This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.

                    Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                    Wed, May 28, 2008 - 6:27 AM
                    Thanks for sharing one of your faves with us Barnaby.

                    Just for the public record. I didn't ask for the picture that Od posted to the tribe to be taken and thought it was fine in the context of the thread. I objected to Barnaby about "." posting a quote from me underneath it because I consider it to be a form of sexualized harrassment that crosses the line into a level of misogeny that I wouldn't stand by and ignore if it was being done to another woman.
                    • Od
                      Od
                      offline 97

                      Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                      Wed, May 28, 2008 - 8:00 AM

                      ; )

                      Science and humor are not incompatible... Just ask Richard Feynman (wherever he is)...
                      • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                        Wed, May 28, 2008 - 8:15 AM
                        hehe, totally Od. Neither is sex and science - particularly in a thread about Oxytocin! Hmmm, oxytocin makes me feel funny.... ;-)
                        • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                          Wed, May 28, 2008 - 8:18 AM
                          That said, if Voodoo finds it out of place and disruptive to a conversation he'd like to have in a thread he started I'd be happy to cut the funny stuff out and present any thoughts in a more formal and serious manner.
                          • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                            Wed, May 28, 2008 - 10:21 AM
                            <"That said, if Voodoo finds it out of place and disruptive to a conversation he'd like to have in a thread he started I'd be happy to cut the funny stuff out and present any thoughts in a more formal and serious manner.">

                            Eh, I didn't really have anything more to add. I just posted this because it was interesting to me and I figured it would be of interest to the tribe.
                            • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                              Wed, May 28, 2008 - 10:26 AM
                              Voodoo - I didn't think you'd mind since you've always seemed to have an intact funnybone but since it was brought up in another thread as being inappropriate and equivalent to trolling by someone I thought I should check with you to make sure. And while my first post may be anecdotal and a bit flippant, I actually consider it on topic since it's about the bonding effects of oxytocin.
                      • Re: Oxytocin - The Trust Hormone

                        Wed, May 28, 2008 - 9:24 AM
                        "Just ask Richard Feynman (wherever he is)..."

                        Surely You're Joking, Mr Od! ;-) Feynman's a hero of mine...

                        Fifi a écrit, "That said, if Voodoo finds it out of place and disruptive to a conversation he'd like to have in a thread he started I'd be happy to cut the funny stuff out and present any thoughts in a more formal and serious manner."

                        I share any blame for fanning the risqué flames... Though with one (commenting) exception I think we all managed not to cross the line into tasteless & offensive.
                    • for those who took/take offense

                      Wed, May 28, 2008 - 10:58 AM
                      I'd like to publicly express my sincere regrets to anyone who felt harassed by the counterpoised quote of propriety to a picture of it's opposite--I meant no more/no less.

                      To those who interpret this as verbal abuse/harassment, sexual or otherwise...I am sorry.

                      That is the only unsolicited comment I will make on this thread.