Cited by 3,690Neuroendocrine regulation and behaviorExperimental Behavioral Economics StudiesEvolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Oxytocin increases trust in humans

Open access

Abstract

Trust pervades human societies. Trust is indispensable in friendship, love, families and organizations, and plays a key role in economic exchange and politics. In the absence of trust among trading partners, market transactions break down. In the absence of trust in a country's institutions and leaders, political legitimacy breaks down. Much recent evidence indicates that trust contributes to economic, political and social success. Little is known, however, about the biological basis of trust among humans. Here we show that intranasal administration of oxytocin, a neuropeptide that plays a key role in social attachment and affiliation in non-human mammals, causes a substantial increase in trust among humans, thereby greatly increasing the benefits from social interactions. We also show that the effect of oxytocin on trust is not due to a general increase in the readiness to bear risks. On the contrary, oxytocin specifically affects an individual's willingness to accept social risks arising through interpersonal interactions. These results concur with animal research suggesting an essential role for oxytocin as a biological basis of prosocial approach behaviour.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/nature03701

Cites

32 of 32 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 31 references

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Fischbacher, U. z-Tree. Zurich Toolbox for Readymade Economic Experiments (Working Paper No. 21, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Univ., Zurich, 1999)

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Metadata

Authors
Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E.
Affiliations
  • University of Zurich (CH)
  • Claremont Graduate University (US)
Corresponding author
  • Heinrichs, Markus
  • Fehr, Ernst
Venue
Nature
Published
2005-06
Volume
435
Issue
7042
Pages
673-676
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2138559331
Cited by
3,690
References
31
Citations by year
2026: 78 · 2025: 92 · 2024: 111 · 2023: 128 · 2022: 134 · 2021: 209 · 2020: 205 · 2019: 233 · 2018: 184 · 2017: 186 · 2016: 208 · 2015: 232 · 2014: 260 · 2013: 238 · 2012: 236
FWCI
148.55
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
  • Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
  • Cogito Foundation
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
  • Universität Zürich
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
Keywords
oxytocin, trust, social risk, prosocial behavior, social attachment, neuropeptides, intranasal administration, interpersonal interaction, risk-taking
MeSH terms
Administration, Intranasal, Adult, Games, Experimental, Humans, Investments, Male, Oxytocin, Surveys and Questionnaires, Risk, Social Behavior, Trust

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review