Hormones

Studies

Baumgartner (2008) Terms to define

• Hormones

• Oxytocin

Baumgartner (2008) Aim

To investigate the role the hormone oxytocin may play in trust relationships

Baumgartner (2008) Procedure

• Laboratory experiment

• 49 participants had an fMRI

• They recieved either ocytocin (group 1) or a placebo (group 2) via nasal spray

• Participants were told to act as investors in several rounds of a trust game involving financial risk, with different trustees

• The investor must decide whether they want to keep or share an amount of money with a trustee

• If the sum is shared it will triple the amout and the trustee has to decide whether to pay the trust back by sharing half with the investor or violate it by keeping all the money

• In a second condition, they were told they were playing a ‘risk game’ with a computer instead of another human

• The experimenters gave them feedback saying that their decisions had resulted in poor investments as they broke the trust and then to make their next investment

Baumgartner (2008) Results

• Placebo participants, before they started playing were more likely to decrease their rate of trst after being breifed that their trust had been broken

• Participants who recieved oxytocin continued to invest at similar rates

• Apparently it did not matter to them that their partner had broken their trust

• Different brain areas were active in the two groups

• The oxytocin group showed decreases in responses in the amygdala and caudate nucleus

• The amyglada (has many oxytocin receptors) is involved in emotional processing and fear learning

• The caudate nucleus is associated with learning and memory and has a role in reward-related responses and learning to trust

• The results observed were only apparent when they played the trust game but not the risk game, meaning that oxytocin’s effects on trust are exclusive to human interaction not computer

• Oxytocin may facilitate the expression of trust even when it has been violated by lowering fense mechanisms associated with social risk, therefore decreases our ability to learn from mistakes made in trusting people

Baumgartner (2008) Evaluation

McGaugh & Cahill (1995) Terms to define

• Hormones

• Testosterone

McGaugh & Cahill (1995) Aim

To investigate the role of adrenaline and the amygdala on emotional memory

McGaugh & Cahill (1995) Procedure

• Participants divided into two groups

• Each group saw 12 slides that were accompanied by a very different story

• The first condition heard a boring story, while the second condition heard a more interesting story with a tragic twist

• Two weeks after, they were asked to come back and their memory for specific details of the story were tested

• It consisted of a series of questions about the slides with three options to chose from

• A follow-up study was conducted where the procedure was repeated but with the “traumatic story” condition injected with a beta-blocker (interferes with the release of adrenaline)

McGaugh & Cahill (1995) Results

• The participants that heard the emotional (tragic) story had better recall

• Adrenaline and activation of the amygdala play a significant role in the creation of memories linked to emotional arousal

• Beta-blocker participants did no better than the group that heard the boring study

McGaugh & Cahill (1995) Evaluation

Hormones and studies general evaluation

• The reductionist nature of attributing complex human behaviors to a single hormone

• The indirect way of measuring hormones

• It is difficult to measure hormones in a naturalistic setting, when not eperimental

• Correlations are drawn which may be based on assumptions