A chemical best known for cementing
the bond between a mother and her newborn child could also play a
part in picking mister (or miss) right.
A new study shows that men and
women who inhale a whiff of the hormone oxytocin rate strangers as
more attractive.
When oxytocin courses through our
blood, "we are more likely to see people we don't know in a more
positive light," says Angeliki Theodoridou, a psychologist at the
University of Bristol, UK, who led the new study.
This effect adds to the hormone's
known role in human relationships. One study found that oxytocin
levels spike after new mothers look at or touch their newborns and
may help bonding.
Other work has hinted at the
importance of oxytocin in social situations between adults
too.
People administered the hormone
make overly generous offers in an economic game that measures
trust, while men who got a dose of oxytocin proved better at
remembering the faces of strangers a day later, compared to
subjects who got a placebo.
In the latest trial, Theodoridou's
team tested 96 men and women in a double-blind placebo-controlled
trial. After participants got either a spritz of oxytocin or a
placebo, they rated pictures of 48 men and women for attractiveness
and 30 for trustworthiness. Her team also tested for
mood.
No matter their sex or mood,
volunteers who received oxytocin rated male and female strangers as
both more attractive and trusting.
Theodoridou's study did not
examine how oxytocin could affect social judgements, but she
speculates that the hormone dampens brain activity in a region
involved in processing fearful emotions, called the
amygdala.
A previous study found that
oxytocin tempered amygdala activation in volunteers who saw a face
that had previously been paired with a slight shock.
Although Theodoridou's study shows
that oxytocin acts similarly on men and women when rating
strangers, sex differences could emerge in real-world situations,
says Jennifer Bartz, a psychologist at Mount Sinai Medical School
in New York. More research is needed to see if this is the case,
she says.
Unsurprisingly, entrepreneurs are
already trying to make a buck off of oxytocin's social effects. One
company offers a spray that claims to engender trust in others,
though it offers little more than testimonials as evidence that it
works.