Oxytocin is not racist but discriminates

The oxytocin increase the preference for people belonging to your same ethnicity and your own time; to a lesser extent it increases the prejudice against those who are not same group , suggests a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Maternal behavior, as well as sexual patterns, trust and love are related to the hormone oxytocin, but the study suggests that it may not be universal, but directed toward people ethnic group to which it belongs.

Experiments involved men from the Netherlands, where one group was divided into two, one took oxytocin and the other a placebo. The men underwent an implicit association test, which measures the subconscious bias by observing the reaction that connects positive or negative words in members of a particular ethnic group or names that suggest being from another nation or group.

Men were confronted with moral dilemmas such as deciding which person is denied access to a lifeboat to save five others. Those exposed to oxytocin were more likely to give preference to people of your country, about people of Muslim or German origin.

But in other types of studies, a trick was found. The preferences also appeared if they were groups formed by the same scientists in the experiment, or because they belonged to a certain football team.

The panorama in general underlines that flexible and complex can be the Membership in a group, and how it can determine who enters and who does not. Although oxytocin does give preference to people we consider "of our group" or "like us," it is still difficult for researchers to determine unique factors that integrate everything.

Source: Healthland Time