Opposing Oxytocin Effects on Intergroup Cooperative Behavior in Intuitive and Reflective Minds
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People often favor ingroup over outgroup members when choosing to cooperate. Such ingroup-favored cooperation is promoted by oxytocin-a neuropeptide shown to facilitate social cognition and that has emerged as a pharmacological target for treatments of social functioning deficits. The current study applied a dual-process model to investigate whether and how intuitive and reflective cognitive styles affect the oxytocin-motivated ingroup favoritism in cooperation. We examined oxytocin effects on ingroup favoritism in a double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects design where cognitive processing (intuition vs reflection) was experimentally manipulated in healthy Chinese males (n=150). We also supplemented this experimental manipulation with an individual difference analysis by assessing participants' inclination toward intuition or reflection in daily life. Intranasal administration of oxytocin (vs placebo) increased ingroup favoritism among participants primed to be intuitive or those who preferred intuition in daily life. In contrast, oxytocin decreased ingroup favoritism in participants primed to rely on reflective thinking or those who preferred reflective decision-making in daily life. Our results demonstrate that oxytocin has distinct functional roles when different cognitive styles (ie, intuition vs reflection) are promoted during social cooperation in a group situation. Our findings have implications for oxytocin pharmacotherapy of social dysfunction in that whether the effects of oxytocin on social functioning are facilitative, debilitative, or null, depends on an individual's cognitive style.
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Oxytocin plays an important role in social interaction and social decision-making, including promoting social motivation, increasing trust and cooperation with own-group members, and reducing social distance.
“Oxytocin has been found to play an important role in social interaction and social decision-making 22 , including promoting social motivation 23 , increasing trust and cooperation with own-group members 24 , and reducing social distance 25 .”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [24]
Seemingly contradictory oxytocin effects may be moderated by poorly understood individual and contextual differences.
“Seemingly contradictory oxytocin effects may be moderated by poorly understood individual and contextual differences 21,24 .”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [24]
IN-OT facilitated responses to positive social cues, increased positive social memory, and promoted positive value transmission to social interactions.
“IN-OT facilitated responses to positive social cues, increased positive social memory, and promoted positive value transmission to social interactions (5, 15, 33).”
From Distinct oxytocin effects on belief updating in response to desirable and undesirable feedback (2016) · cites this paper as [15]
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- Authors
- Ma, Y., Liu, Y., Rand, D. G., Heatherton, T. F., & Han, S.
- Affiliations
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Peking University (CN)
- Yale University (US)
- Dartmouth College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ma, Yina
- Han, Shihui
- Venue
- Neuropsychopharmacology
- Published
- 2015-03-25
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 2379-2387
- ISSN
- 0893-133X (ISSN-L)
- 1740-634X
- PMC
- PMC4538352
- OpenAlex
- W2148290949
- Cited by
- 55
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 12.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Neuropsychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH059282)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- oxytocin, in-group favoritism, intergroup cooperation, intuitive thinking, reflective thinking, dual-process models, individual differences, social cognition, social dysfunction, intranasal administration
- MeSH terms
- Activities of Daily Living, Analysis of Variance, Cognition, Cooperative Behavior, Double-Blind Method, Games, Experimental, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Motivation, Neuropsychological Tests, Oxytocin, Social Behavior, Students, Universities
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