Skip to main content

Oxytocin Increases Emotional Theory of Mind, But Only for Low Socioeconomic Status Individuals.

Sun, R., Vuillier, L., Deakin, J. and Kogan, A., 2020. Oxytocin Increases Emotional Theory of Mind, But Only for Low Socioeconomic Status Individuals. Heliyon, 6 (3), e03540.

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF (OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE)
PIIS2405844020303856.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial.

349kB
[img] PDF
Accepted_Manuscript.pdf - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial.

250kB

DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03540

Abstract

Studies have linked oxytocin to emotional theory of mind (eToM) — the ability to recognise and understand others’ emotions. However, multiple replications have so far failed to reach a consistent result. Growing evidence suggests that oxytocin’s positive effects on social-emotional tasks such as eToM are highly dependent on trait-level individual differences. In the present study, we theorised that socioeconomic status (SES) could influence oxytocin’s impact on emotional mentalising processes. We tested our hypothesis in a double-blind between–subjects oxytocin nasal spray study on 147 Caucasian white male participants in the United Kingdom. In accordance with our hypothesis, we found that oxytocin (as compared to placebo) did boost emotional theory of mind, but only in people from low subjective SES backgrounds. Our results expand existing theory on how individual differences moderate oxytocin’s role on social behaviours.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:2405-8440
Additional Information:Data associated with this study has been deposited at https://osf. io/4cavb/?view_only¼36ceba499d66431ca769c8b86c7da4f4 Supplementary content related to this article has been published online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03540.
Uncontrolled Keywords:oxytocin; emotional theory of mind (eToM); socioeconomic status (SES); individual difference; Read the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET);
Group:Faculty of Science & Technology
ID Code:33525
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:04 Mar 2020 16:24
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 14:20

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...
Repository Staff Only -