PERRY ET AL. (oxytocin - interpersonal distance preference)

SOCIAL APPROACH AS-LEVEL

Psychology being investigated in Perry et al.

Interpersonal distance - distance between people in which they choose to not let people in, based on relationships with others

→ psychologists want to test other factors affecting interpersonal distance preference

Oxytocin - social hormones associated with empathy and helping behaviour as well as lack of cooperation and jaelousy

Empathy - ability to understand others feelings → shape how people process social cues (social salience)

Background

Scheele et al - administered oxytocin to males in monogamous relationships increased their preferred distance from an attractive female

Aim

Test differential effect of oxytocin (OT) on personal space preference in relation to a person’s empathy ability

Whether high empath would prefer closer distance and low empath would prefer higher distance

Methods and design

Laboratory experiment - University of Haifa

Mixed experimental design

• Empathy level - independent measure design

• Treatment - repeated measure design - counterbalance

• Experiment 1 - 3rd IV ‘condition’ - repeated measure

Individual variables (IVs)

Empathy score - self-report named High Interpersonal Reactivity (IRI) → High: 20 with scores >= 40; Low: 20 with scores < 33
Treatment - OT and Placebo/saline (solution with no clinical effect)

Condition (experiment 1)

DV: personal space requirement

• EXP1: preferred distance measured between participant and approaching person/object

• EXP2: preferred distance and angle between two chairs

Sample

54 male undergraduates from University of Haifa

mean age 25.3

participated for course credit, payment → volunteer sampling

normal vision

no psychiatric/ neurological disorders

General Procedure

OT administration - 250ml of intranasal OT or placebo saline solution → self-administered, double-blind techniques

Assessment of empathy - complete IRI online questionnaire

Procedure #EXP1

Comfortable Interpersonal Distance (CID) paradigm

• Imagine themselves in the centre of the room with another person/object approaching

• Press the spacebar when want to stop

• Close friend, stranger, authority figure, ball → 24 trials for each, 96 total

• Record the percentage of remaining distance

Procedure EXP#2

• Told that they have to sit in a room with another participants to discuss personal topics + choose a room for the design → computerised stimuli

• Experimental condition: preferred angles and distances between the chair (20-140cm) (0, 45, 90 degrees)

• Control condition: distance and angles between plant and chair → to see if their personal distance is really determined by empathy and social interation or they just don’t like small spaces

• Each was shown 84 pairs and repeated twice → 168

• Shown 2s on computer screen

Materials

• CID paradigm

• Computerised pictures

Results #EXP1

• Condition - participants prefer greater distance from those less known to them

• Interaction effects treatment x empathy - decreases distance in high empath + increases distance in low empath → differential effects

• Treatment x condition x empathy - stranger > authority > ball > friend → ball is an invitation to social interaction, a cue which is ENHANCED by OT in high empathisers

Results #EXP2

• Differences in chair distances but not angles → high empath prefer closer chairs while low empath prefer further distance

• Only treatment and empathy have interactional effects, not plants and tables → OT and empathy has no effect on choices for plants and tables => support social salience hypothesis that OT does not affect overal distance preferences but only those with social contexts (not for overall objects but only for those that SUGGEST potential interaction)

Conclusion

• administration of OT enhances social cues in opposite ways for people with different empathy level → support the idea of social salience

• low empath prefer more distance on OT

• high empath prefer less distance on OT

• confirm previous study about the relationship between people and distances

Generalisability

54 males in university of haifa

→ males are socialised differently than females in terms of intimacy

→ all of them came from same education background as people from working class might be more familiar with interacting with authority and strangers

Reliability

• Laboratory with highly standardised procedure - computer project images for consistent 2 seconds

• Objective, quantitative measures

Application

• Enhance patient - provider communication by acknowledging the vary empathy levels in patient and how to create a comfortable environment for them

• Personalizing treatments

Validity

• Low mundane realism and ecological validity (hypothetical context)

• Reduced demand characteristics by counterbalancing

• Reduced researcher bias

• Random allocation → reducing risks of systematic differences → internal validity

Ethics

• Deception before task 2

• May cause psychological harm

Individual vs Situational

• Dynamic interaction between the two

• Individual - empathy level

• Situational - OT, type of approaching figures

Nature vs Nurture

Examining how a biological factor (oxytocin) interacts with a psychological trait (empathy) that may be influenced by both genetics and environment.

→ interactionist perspective

Reductionism vs holism

• Reductionist element: focus on a single hormones and its effects

• Holistic: all factors such as empathy and conditions