title: The effect of oxytocin on cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma depends on the social context and a person's social value orientation.
abstract: The interactionist approach to the study of exogenous oxytocin (OT) effects on prosocial behavior has emphasized the need to consider both contextual cues and individual differences. Therefore, an experiment was set up to examine the joint effect of intranasal OT, a salient social cue and the personality trait social value orientation on cooperative behavior in one-shot prisoner's dilemma games. The outcome of these mixed-motive games is known to be highly dependent on values and on social information that might reveal the partner's intent. Consistent with an a priori hypothesis, OT and social information interact significantly to affect the behavior of individuals with a proself value orientation: after prior contact with the game partner, OT enhances cooperative behavior, whereas in anonymous conditions, it exacerbates their intrinsic self-interested behavior. These effects of OT do not hold for individuals with a prosocial value orientation, whose cooperation levels appear to be more influenced by prior contact with the game partner. Follow-up hypotheses for why prosocial and proself individuals respond differently to exogenous OT were developed.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Economics University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium and School of Social Informatics, Aoyama Gakuin University, Sagamihara-city, Kanagawa, Japan carolyn.declerck@ua.ac.be.
authors.forename: Carolyn H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Declerck
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Economics University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium and School of Social Informatics, Aoyama Gakuin University, Sagamihara-city, Kanagawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Boone
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Economics University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium and School of Social Informatics, Aoyama Gakuin University, Sagamihara-city, Kanagawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Toko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kiyonari
mesh_terms: D000281:Administration, Intranasal; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010121:Oxytocin / Q000494:pharmacology*; D010551:Personality; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs / Q000494:pharmacology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D011619:Psychotropic Drugs; D010121:Oxytocin
keywords: cooperation; oxytocin; prisoner’s dilemma; prosocial behavior; social value orientation