title: Oxytocin increases liking for a country's people and national flag but not for other cultural symbols or consumer products.
abstract: The neuropeptide oxytocin enhances in-group favoritism and ethnocentrism in males. However, whether such effects also occur in women and extend to national symbols and companies/consumer products is unclear. In a between-subject, double-blind placebo controlled experiment we have investigated the effect of intranasal oxytocin on likeability and arousal ratings given by 51 adult Chinese males and females for pictures depicting people or national symbols/consumer products from both strong and weak in-groups (China and Taiwan) and corresponding out-groups (Japan and South Korea). To assess duration of treatment effects subjects were also re-tested after 1 week. Results showed that although oxytocin selectively increased the bias for overall liking for Chinese social stimuli and the national flag, it had no effect on the similar bias toward other Chinese cultural symbols, companies, and consumer products. This enhanced bias was maintained 1 week after treatment. No overall oxytocin effects were found for Taiwanese, Japanese, or South Korean pictures. Our findings show for the first time that oxytocin increases liking for a nation's society and flag in both men and women, but not that for other cultural symbols or companies/consumer products.
authors.affiliation: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Xiaole
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Lizhu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Yayuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Geng
authors.affiliation: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Keith M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Kendrick
keywords: ethnocentrism; in-group; national flag; oxytocin; social