title: Oxytocin makes females, but not males, less forgiving following betrayal of trust.
abstract: Although oxytocin has been shown to enhance trust behavior, to date no study has directly established whether oxytocin can modulate the effect of repair strategies on restoring damaged trust. In the current double-blind, between-subjects, placebo-controlled design study, two repair strategies were used to examine the effect of intranasal oxytocin administration on modulating trust restoration in a revised trust game. The results showed that although oxytocin had no overall effect on modulating trust restoration, it did have a significant gender specific effect. Female subjects showed less evidence for trust repair in the oxytocin compared with the placebo treatment group. This suggests that oxytocin may make female subjects exhibit more punitive behavior towards partners who violate their trust and less sensitive to repair strategies provided by them. Interestingly, this gender specific effect was more evident in the context of attempted trust repair using financial compensation. However, it also extended to both apology alone and no compensation conditions, but not to the fair one, in females exhibiting high trait forgiveness. Thus females with a more forgiving attitude towards betrayal may actually be more likely to punish betrayal following oxytocin treatment.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu, Sichuan 610054,China.
authors.forename: Shuxia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu, Sichuan 610054,China.
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu, Sichuan 610054,China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu, Sichuan 610054,China.
authors.forename: Yayuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Geng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu, Sichuan 610054,China.
authors.forename: Lizhu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu, Sichuan 610054,China.
authors.forename: Keith M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Kendrick
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D005260:Female; D061347:Forgiveness / Q000187:drug effects*; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010121:Oxytocin / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010121:Oxytocin