The effects of intranasal oxytocin during trustworthiness evaluation: Context matters

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Enformatik Enstitüsü, Sağlık Bilişimi Anabilim Dalı, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2017

Öğrenci: ANIL KARABULUT

Danışman: DİDEM GÖKÇAY

Özet:

Social domain of human life is thought to be regulated majorly by the factors present in the immediate surroundings. Aside from environmental factors, as one of the agents connecting neurochemical mechanisms and social processes, the neuropeptide oxytocin is also suggested to be involved in social cognition and prosocial behavior including approach and trust. Thus, the current study is conducted towards understanding the effects of intranasally administered oxytocin on pupil dilation and on trustworthiness evaluation during two different social cognitive tasks that differ only with respect to situational context. We used computer generated faces as stimuli from the Trustworthiness Data Set 2 which contains faces manipulated on the axis of facial trustworthiness in three levels (trustworthy, neutral, and untrustworthy). Additionally, we managed to collect task evoked pupil diameter changes during subjective evaluation of trustworthiness tasks. In order to prevent any sex-dependent effects of oxytocin, only heterosexual male participants were invited to participate in the study. The findings revealed that intranasal oxytocin indeed exerts its effects in a task-dependent manner. While the same faces were rated as being more trustworthy in approach task, they were rated as being less trustworthy in trust task under the influence of oxytocin. Aside from that, participants in the oxytocin group were faster at judging the trustworthiness levels of the faces in both approach and trust task. In terms of pupil dilation, there was a significant but subtle difference between the placebo and oxytocin groups. The current study is a facilitator towards understanding the situation variant nature of oxytocin and it enables us to conduct more refined theories about the social effects of oxytocin in humans.