Andari et. al. ran this double-blind placebo RCT in France in which they tested adult autistic subjects’ behaviors in a video ball toss game, with or without oxytocin (via nasal spray). Most of the subjects were male. Subjects were shown the backs of other persons sitting in front of screens and were told they were tossing the ball to those people. In reality, the other “people” in the game were computer algorithms programmed to toss the ball to the subject 70%, 30%, and 10% of the time. They found that allistic subjects showed favoritism to the 70%-er, whereas autistic placebo subjects tossed the ball fairly to all three other “players.” Autistic subjects who received oxytocin, however, showed some favoritism behaviors like allistics, though not as frequently. They also measured subjects’ time looking at eyes and faces on a screen and found that autistics spent significantly less time on eyes and faces, and more time on “saccade,” which is rapid eye movement between fixation points (rapid visual scanning), than allistics. They found that autistics given oxytocin increased their time gazing at eyes and faces, and decreased their saccade. The authors discussed the possible role of oxytocin in increased reciprocity and increased attention and focus on eyes and faces.
Autistics are described in the DSM as having deficits in reciprocity. I like this study because it shows autistic reciprocity in a much larger context than the person they are interacting with. While allistics show favoritism and expect favoritism back, autistics distribute their favor in a wider net of empathy and needs. It seems interesting that oxytocin seems to promote more focus on just the people who give to us instead of the people who don’t give back.
I think of oxytocin as a “pack animal” hormone. Oxytocin has also been shown to increase out-group hostility and exclusion and increase lying behavior to protect in-group interests2, 3 (Shalvi and De Dreu, 2014; De Dreu et al, 2011). It has also been found to increase aggressive behavior towards intimate partners if the subject already had aggressive tendencies to begin with (De Wall et al, 2014). People with borderline personality disorder show decreased trust after getting intranasal oxytocin (Bartz et al, 2011).
If you want to go down a rabbit hole, research oxytocin in animal studies. Aggressive chimpanzees had high levels of oxytocin before and during intergroup conflicts. Domestic cats given oxytocin are more hostile to other cats in the same house. Dogs have 5 times the oxytocin as cats. Okay, nobody is surprised by that last one.
References:
1) Andari, E., Duhamel, J.-R., Zalla, T., & Sirigu, A. (2010). Promoting social behavior with oxytocin in high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(9), 4389-4394. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0910249107
(2) Shalvi, S. and De Dreu, C. K. W. (2014). Oxytocin promotes group-serving dishonesty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (15): 5503-5507. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.140072411
(3) De Dreu, C. K. W., Greer L. L., Van Kleef, G. A., Shalvi, S. , and Handgraaf, M. J. J. (2011). Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,108 (4):1262-1266. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.101531610
(4) Moerkerke, M., Peeters, M., de Vries, L., Daniels, N., Steyaert, J., Alaerts, K., and Boets, B.. Endogenous Oxytocin Levels in Autism—A Meta-Analysis. (2021) Brain Sciences. 11(11):1545. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11111545
(5) Hu, Y., Pereira, A. M., Gao, X., Campos, B. M., Derrington, E., Corgnet, B., Zhou, X., Cendes, F. and Dreher, J.-C. (2021). Right Temporoparietal Junction Underlies Avoidance of Moral Transgression in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Neuroscience, 41 (8) 1699-1715. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1237-20.2020
Bar Graph adapted from:
Engelbrecht, N. (n.d.). Honey bees: understanding autism and social behavior.
https://embrace-autism.com/honey-bees-understanding-autism-and-social-behaviour/
Additional reading:
DeWall, C. N., Gillath, O., Pressman, S. D., Black, L. L., Bartz, J. A., Moskovitz, J., & Stetler, D. A. (2014). When the Love Hormone Leads to Violence: Oxytocin Increases Intimate Partner Violence Inclinations Among High Trait Aggressive People. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(6), 691-697. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613516876
Romney, C., Hahn-Holbrook, J., Norman, G.J., Moore, A., Holt-Lunstad, J. (2019). Where is the love? A double-blind, randomized study of the effects of intranasal oxytocin on stress regulation and aggression. International Journal of Psychophysiology,136: 15-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2018.08.010
Bartz, J., Simeon, D., Hamilton, H., Kim, S., Crystal, S., Braun, A., Vicens, V., & Hollander, E. (2011). Oxytocin can hinder trust and cooperation in borderline personality disorder. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 6(5), 556–563. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsq085
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