Intranasal administration of oxytocin increases human aggressive behavior
Abstract
Considering its role in prosocial behaviors, oxytocin (OT) has been suggested to diminish levels of aggression. Nevertheless, recent findings indicate that oxytocin may have a broader influence on increasing the salience of social stimuli and may therefore, under certain circumstances, increase antisocial behaviors such as aggression. This controversy led to the following speculations: If indeed oxytocin promotes primarily prosocial behavior, administration of OT is expected to diminish levels of aggression. However, if oxytocin mainly acts to increase the salience of social stimuli, it is expected to elevate levels of aggression following provocation. In order to test this assumption we used the Social Orientation Paradigm (SOP), a monetary game played against a fictitious partner that allows measuring three types of responses in the context of provocation: an aggressive response - reducing a point from the fictitious partner, an individualistic response - adding a point to oneself, and a collaborative response - adding half a point to the partner and half a point to oneself. In the current double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject study design, 45 participants completed the SOP task following the administration of oxytocin or placebo. The results indicated that among subjects naïve to the procedure oxytocin increased aggressive responses in comparison with placebo. These results support the saliency hypothesis of oxytocin and suggest that oxytocin plays a complex role in the modulation of human behavior.
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Oxytocin has been implicated in many social behaviors, from promoting trust, generosity and cooperation to aggravating mistrust and aggressive behavior.
“Oxytocin has been implicated in many social behaviors, from promoting trust, generosity and cooperation 21,22,46,47 to aggravating mistrust and aggressive behavior 48,49 .”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [48]
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“Studies in Aggression and Violence Two studies looked at the effect of OT on aggression and violence (59, 60).”
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“exposure to aversive noise blasts as punishment) and oxytocin-induced behavioural changes (i.e. increased selfreported hostility; Ne’eman et al., 2016; Romney et al., 2019), with no actual manipulation of context.”
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“In another study of healthy participants, compared with the placebo group, the intranasal administration of oxytocin increased the aggressive responses of participants in the experimental group while playing a monetary game (34).”
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“The direct effect of intranasal oxytocin on aggressive behavior in a laboratory task showed conflicting results (Alcorn, Green et al., 2015; Campbell & Hausmann, 2013; Ne’eman et al., 2016).”
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“…we utilized our seminatural setup to test both social and individual behavioral characteristics in 2 mouse models that display increased aggression: 1) aggression due to early and prolonged exposure to EE and 2) aggression due to developmental de fi ciency of the oxytocin receptor ( Oxtr ) (25,26).”
Park, J., Woolley, J. D., & Mendes, W. B. (2022) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.916305 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“This result is in support of our hypothesis and also consistent with prior findings that oxytocin facilitates angry reactions when the context involves negative interpersonal cues (Bosch et al., 2005; DeWall et al., 2014; Ne’eman et al., 2016).”
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Don, W., Tsheringla, S., McPartland, J. C., & Allsop, S. A. (2022) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2021.0051 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“Importantly, exogenous oxytocin does not always effect positive valence, as oxytocin administration in other contexts can increase aggression, envy, gloating, and both in-and out-group bias [54 – 56].”
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“50 As such, the social salience hypothesis could explain an increase in aggression from the females when they received OT.”
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“Importantly, the literature is relatively heterogeneous on the impact of oxytocin, with some studies reporting increased aggression in adults and the improved recognition of happy faces, but not other emotional faces, though this work was conducted in adults [54,55].”
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“However, other studies have found that intranasal OXT administration increases aggressive behavior in healthy adults [97,98].”
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Development of the Parental Brain in Nonhuman Mammals
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Development of the Parental Brain in Humans
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- Authors
- Ne'eman, R., Perach-Barzilay, N., Fischer-Shofty, M., Atias, A., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Haifa (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Ne'eman, R.
- Venue
- Hormones and Behavior
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-04
- Volume
- 80
- Pages
- 125-131
- ISSN
- 0018-506X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2268363832
- Semantic Scholar
- 202965e347297abe368daf908ec49167b1ddb6ef
- Cited by
- 121
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 15.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Hormones and Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- oxytocin, aggression, intranasal administration, provocation, social salience, prosocial behavior, antisocial behavior
- MeSH terms
- Administration, Intranasal, Adult, Aggression, Arousal, Cooperative Behavior, Double-Blind Method, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Oxytocin, Social Behavior, Young Adult
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