Oxytocin, but not vasopressin, decreases willingness to harm others by promoting moral emotions of guilt and shame

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Oxytocin and Vasopressin.

Prosocial and moral behaviors have overlapping neural systems and can both be affected in a number of psychiatric disorders, although whether they involve similar neurochemical systems is unclear.

In the current registered randomized placebo-controlled trial on 180 adult male and female subjects, the researchers investigated the effects of intranasal administration of oxytocin and vasopressin, which play key roles in influencing social behavior, on moral emotion ratings for situations involving harming others and on judgments of moral dilemmas where others are harmed for a greater good.

Who Took Part

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

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Oxytocin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

As a double-blind Oxytocin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

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

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Oxytocin, Guilt, Shame, Morals, Vasopressins, Empathy and Emotions.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The publication is from 2024 (Molecular psychiatry), a journal based in England.

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