According to a new study carried out by researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) and the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), oxytocin , more commonly known as the “love hormone”, encourages us to lie for the good of the group .
The research focused on ethical decision making and the justifications that people use to avoid feeling bad. Very little is known about the biological bases of immoral behavior and this study aimed to delve into that.
For this, the experiment had 60 male participants who received a dose of intranasal oxytocin . The participants (divided into two groups including control subjects) were subjected to a team game that consisted of predicting whether a coin toss would result in heads or tails. If they got their prediction right, the team made money. Men in both groups cheated with the result, but those who had inhaled oxytocin before playing lied more and were less hesitant to do so. Knowing that by lying, the group could earn more money, they did not hesitate to do so.
53% of those who received oxytocin claimed to have correctly predicted all 10 coin tosses performed, which is extremely unlikely, simply because of statistical probability.
Thus, oxytocin, which stimulates bonding and is related to greater empathy, less social anxiety and more prosocial behavior, seems to push us to break ethical rules if we help the people we care about , whether they are from our family, from our group of friends, etc. The research was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).
