SOLICITUDE

Item: The effects of oxytocin on the brain.

In a risky investment game, experimental subjects given nasally administered oxytocin displayed “the highest level of trust” twice as often as the control group. Subjects who were told that they were interacting with a computer showed no such reaction, leading to the conclusion that oxytocin was not merely affecting risk-aversion (Kosfeld 2005).

Apparently this is not only a standard experimental technique, but the interpretation of the results is also widely accepted.