Oxytocin will determine whether you are generous or selfish

(scienceinfo.net) - Can the chemicals in your body affect your personality: generous or selfish? In recent years, experiments have explored the role of a substance called oxytocin - a substance a researcher calls a "moral molecule".

In an experiment known as ultimatum games, one of the two was given a sum of money, say $ 100, and told him to decide how to share it with the # 2 person. the number 2 is not satisfied with the way of dividing and she can refuse, but then the money disappears, and nobody gets anything.

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak and colleagues made many changes from this experiment. In one experiment, they gave some people a chance to smell oxytocin first, and found that these people were willing to share the money they were provided with the number 2 by 80%. (It is important to note that the increase occurs when a person number 1 must consider the reaction of person 2 with the proposal).

Research shows that oxytocin - once best known as a hormone released during childbirth and breastfeeding - also plays a fundamental role in promoting social behavior.

Oxytocin also acts as a neurotransmitter, or messenger between brain cells.

Oxytocin especially promotes sympathy, and when chemicals are inhibited in someone, they are more likely to become guilty or selfish, Zak said. But this system does not work at all.

Zak illustrates this by using the example of a young Canadian woman, Stephanie Castagnier, a contestant on Donald Trump Castagnier's real estate show. Zak shows Castagnier a video describing a 2-year-old boy who died of cancer. Not surprisingly, this video often promotes a strong response. Zak noticed that video increased an average of 47% oxytocin in the viewers' blood. However, in Castagnier's case, oxytocin only increased by 9%.

"She has no physiology of empathy," Zak said, allowing the girl to be more aggressive.

Testosterone hormone inhibits oxytocin, but Zak found that, while Castagnier had abnormally low testosterone levels, she had extremely high levels of dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, "high octane" version of testosterone, he said. DHT blocked oxytocin he concluded.

Zak and colleagues found that men who were put into testosterone were 27% lower than others when playing ultimatum games.

However, despite this anti-social influence, testosterone helps maintain social order. In fact, people with high testosterone levels tend to want to punish those considered to be uncooperative and greedy, even spending their own resources to do so, Zak has noticed this.

Castagnier's life details also provide a clue. Oxytocin is released as part of what Zak calls "human oxytocin-mediated empathy" circuit. Studies of women who suffer from repeated sexual abuse as a child show that this circuit does not work properly in their case, Zak said. The abuse they had to endure seemed to prevent this circuit from developing correctly.

In the case of Castagnier, her father, a drug dealer, became a homeless addict when she was young. Before she finished high school, both her father and mother died of AIDS.

Based on his observations in a paintball game, Zak speculated that her greed was focused on money, she was able to act collaboratively in other situations.

Other studies are also exploring the complex effects of oxytocin neurotransmitters. This substance is also known as a "love medicine".