The perfect gift for that budding police state that wants to be loved and trusted as well as just feared.
World Science reports:
Researchers have identified brain centers activated by betrayal of trust--and a way to keep them quiet.
A spray of a hormone, oxytocin, makes people keep trusting even someone who has betrayed them, the scientists explained. They presented the findings not as a trick for, say, cheating spouses to keep their partners cooperative, but as an insight into the mind with possible clinical value.
Thomas Baumgartner of the University of Zurich and colleagues said their work could help reveal the brain wiring behind trust and possibly the basis of social disorders such as phobias and autism. The findings are reported in the May 22 issue of the research journal Neuron.
The
investigators asked volunteers to play a "trust game" in which
they contributed money to a human trustee, who would either
invest it and return the profits--or betray them and keep it all.
Some players also received a nasal spray containing the brain chemical and hormon oxytocin, found in previous studies to make people more trusting.
The researchers found that stiffed players who had received oxytocin went on trusting their treacherous partners. Players who had received an inactive spray instead of oxytocin did not.
Thanks again to Eve Matelan
World Science reports:
Researchers have identified brain centers activated by betrayal of trust--and a way to keep them quiet.
A spray of a hormone, oxytocin, makes people keep trusting even someone who has betrayed them, the scientists explained. They presented the findings not as a trick for, say, cheating spouses to keep their partners cooperative, but as an insight into the mind with possible clinical value.
Thomas Baumgartner of the University of Zurich and colleagues said their work could help reveal the brain wiring behind trust and possibly the basis of social disorders such as phobias and autism. The findings are reported in the May 22 issue of the research journal Neuron.
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Amygdala activation,
shown in red in a cross-section of the brain in an fMRI image. (Courtesy
NIMH Clinical Brain Disorders Branch) |
Some players also received a nasal spray containing the brain chemical and hormon oxytocin, found in previous studies to make people more trusting.
The researchers found that stiffed players who had received oxytocin went on trusting their treacherous partners. Players who had received an inactive spray instead of oxytocin did not.
Thanks again to Eve Matelan
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