Coping style moderates the effect of intranasal oxytocin on the mood response to interpersonal stress

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Oxytocin.

The aim of the present study was to determine whether coping style moderates the effect of intranasal oxytocin on mood in response to an interpersonal stressor in healthy men and women.

Why It Was Studied

Currently, no published research has documented whether intraindividual factors moderate the effect of intranasal oxytocin on the emotional response to stress.

In a double-blind placebo-controlled experiment, 100 undergraduate students (50 women) participated in the Yale Interpersonal Stressor (YIPS: Stroud, Tanofsky-Kraff, Wilfley, & Salovey, 2000), a live social rejection paradigm.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 50 women taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults and adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Oxytocin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the women and researchers unaware of who received Oxytocin.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Oxytocin could be set against what happens without it.

Coping was measured using the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Adaptation, Psychological, Affect, Anxiety, Hydrocortisone, Interpersonal Relations, Oxytocin and Psychiatric Status Rating Scales.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin in 50 women.

The publication is from 2012 (Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.