Oxytocin promotes attention to social cues regardless of group membership

Pfundmair, Michaela; Zwarg, Clarissa; Paulus, Markus; Rimpel, Anne

doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2017.03.006

Cited by 23 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Future studies should examine whether similar social cuing impacts group biases. A related study has shown that there are no in-group/out-group saliency differences during the early stages of information processing (Pfundmair et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…OT’s prosocial effects are likely to be depend to social context (e.g., Bartz et al, 2011 ; Shamay-Tsoory and Abu-Akel, 2016 ). OT has been shown to facilitate social recognition in human and non-human animals (Bielsky and Young, 2004 ) and to enhance the saliency of social cues (Pfundmair et al, 2017 ). Social salience, in turn, can increase prosocial behaviors that are facilitated through negative emotions like anger, leading to punishment of non-cooperative behaviors like free-riding (Aydogan et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Endogenous Oxytocin Release Eliminates In-Group Bias in Monetary Transfers With Perspective-Taking

Terris

Beavin

Barraza

et al. 2018

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Oxytocin (OT) has been shown to facilitate trust, empathy and other prosocial behaviors. At the same time, there is evidence that exogenous OT infusion may not result in prosocial behaviors in all contexts, increasing in-group biases in a number of studies. The current investigation seeks to resolve this inconsistency by examining if endogenous OT release is associated with in-group bias. We studied a large group of participants (N = 399) in existing groups and randomly formed groups. Participants provided two blood samples to measure the change in OT after a group salience task and then made computer-mediated monetary transfer decisions to in-group and out-group members. Our results show that participants with an increase in endogenous OT showed no bias in monetary offers in the ultimatum game (UG) to out-group members compared to in-groups. There was also no bias in accepting UG offers, though in-group bias persisted for a unilateral monetary transfer. Our analysis shows that the strength of identification with one’s group diminished the effects that an increase in OT had on reducing bias, but bias only recurred when group identification reached 87% of its maximum value. Our results indicate that the endogenous OT system appears to reduce in-group bias in some contexts, particularly those that require perspective-taking.

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Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Endogenous Oxytocin Release Eliminates In-Group Bias in Monetary Transfers With Perspective-Taking

Terris

Beavin

Barraza

et al. 2018

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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“…One proposed mechanisms by which OT impacts emotional regulation is via the modulation of attention resources. Indeed, intranasal OT will preferentially increase attention toward social cues, such as emotional faces, compared with neutral or non-social cues ( Tollenaar et al , 2013 ; Clark-Elford et al , 2014; Dal Monte et al , 2014 ; Domes et al , 2016 ; Kanat et al , 2017 ; Pfundmair et al , 2017 ). There is emerging interest in whether the modulation of interoceptive processing underpins the impact of the OT system on social cognition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of intranasal oxytocin on interoceptive accuracy in alcohol users: an attentional mechanism?

Betka

Praag

Paloyelis

et al. 2018

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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Interoception, i.e. the perception and appraisal of internal bodily signals, is related to the phenomenon of craving, and is reportedly disrupted in alcohol use disorders. The hormone oxytocin influences afferent transmission of bodily signals and, through its potential modulation of craving, is proposed as a possible treatment for alcohol use disorders. However, oxytocin’s impact on interoception in alcohol users remains unknown. Healthy alcohol users (n = 32) attended two laboratory sessions to perform tests of interoceptive ability (heartbeat tracking: attending to internal signals and, heartbeat discrimination: integrating internal and external signals) after intranasal administration of oxytocin or placebo. Effects of interoceptive accuracy, oxytocin administration and alcohol intake, were tested using mixed-effects models. On the tracking task, oxytocin reduced interoceptive accuracy, but did not interact with alcohol consumption. On the discrimination task, we found an interaction between oxytocin administration and alcohol intake: Oxytocin, compared with placebo, increased interoceptive accuracy in heavy drinkers, but not in light social drinkers. Our study does not suggest a pure interoceptive impairment in alcohol users but instead potentially highlights reduced flexibility of internal and external attentional resource allocation. Importantly, this impairment seems to be mitigated by oxytocin. This attentional hypothesis needs to be explicitly tested in future research.

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“…OXT is a neuropeptide that has a documented role in promoting social behavior and reward by activating dopaminergic pathways in the mesocorticolimbic reward system in response to social experiences and cues 36,41,42 . For example, OXT promotes attention to and processing of social cues 43,44 , enhances social interaction 45 , facilitates social discrimination and novelty-seeking [46][47][48] , produces conditioned place preference 49 , and is necessary for social memory formation 50 . In addition, OXT activates a social learning circuit-the prefrontal cortex, lateral septum, amygdala, ventral hippocampus, NAc, and ventral tegmental area [51][52][53] -that overlaps with the "motive circuit" underlying sign-tracking behavior 13,54 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual variation in the attribution of incentive salience to social cues

Fitzpatrick

Morrow

2020

Sci Rep

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Research on the attribution of incentive salience to drug cues has furthered our understanding of drug self-administration in animals and addiction in humans. The influence of social cues on drug-seeking behavior has garnered attention recently, but few studies have investigated how social cues gain incentive-motivational value. In the present study, a Pavlovian conditioned approach (PCA) procedure was used to identify rats that are more (sign-trackers; STs) or less (goal-trackers; GTs) prone to attribute incentive salience to food reward cues. In Experiment 1, a novel procedure employed social 'peers' to compare the tendency of STs and GTs to attribute incentive salience to social reward cues as well as form a social-conditioned place preference. In Experiment 2, social behavior of STs and GTs was compared using social interaction and choice tests. Finally, in Experiment 3, levels of plasma oxytocin were measured in STs and GTs seven days after the last PCA training session, because oxytocin is known to modulate the mesolimbic reward system and social behavior. Compared to GTs, STs attributed more incentive salience to social-related cues and exhibited prosocial behaviors (e.g., social-conditioned place preference, increased social interaction, and social novelty-seeking). No group differences were observed in plasma oxytocin levels. Taken together, these experiments demonstrate individual variation in the attribution of incentive salience to both food-and social-related cues, which has important implications for the pathophysiology of addiction.

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Oxytocin promotes attention to social cues regardless of group membership

Cited by 23 publications

References 39 publications

Endogenous Oxytocin Release Eliminates In-Group Bias in Monetary Transfers With Perspective-Taking

Endogenous Oxytocin Release Eliminates In-Group Bias in Monetary Transfers With Perspective-Taking

Impact of intranasal oxytocin on interoceptive accuracy in alcohol users: an attentional mechanism?

Individual variation in the attribution of incentive salience to social cues

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