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Please see “Oxytocin” entry by L. D. Kubzansky
Description
Over the past two decades, there has been considerable interest in the role of oxytocin in human bonding and social behavior and cognition more generally. This entry will thus focus exclusively on this topic. As noted in the entry “Oxytocin,” decades of research has shown that oxytocin (and the structurally similar peptide, arginine vasopressin) plays a key role modulating mother-infant and adult-adult pair-bonds in nonhuman animals – specifically, oxytocin is involved in regulating maternal and alloparental (i.e., “babysitting”) behavior, partner preference formation, and social memory (a prerequisite to forming enduring pair-bonds for reviews, see, e.g., Carter 2014; Insel & Young 2001; Ross & Young 2009). In contrast to the nonhuman animal research, research on oxytocin and social behavior and cognition in humans has lagged behind in large part because of...
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References and Further Reading
Bartz, J. A., Nitschke, J. P., Krol, S. A., & Tellier, P. P. (in press). Oxytocin selectively improves empathic accuracy: A replication in men and novel insights in women. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
Bartz, J. A., Zaki, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. N. (2011). Social effects of oxytocin in humans: Context and person matter. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(7), 301–309.
Bartz, J. A., Zaki, J., Ochsner, K. N., Bolger, N., Kolevzon, A., Ludwig, N., & Lydon, J. E. (2010). Effects of oxytocin on recollections of maternal care and closeness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(50), 21371–21375.
Bartz, J. A. (2016). Oxytocin and the pharmacological dissection of affiliation. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 104–110.
Carter, C. S. (2014). Oxytocin pathways and the evolution of human behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 17–39.
De Dreu, C. K., Greer, L. L., Handgraaf, M. J., Shalvi, S., Van Kleef, G. A., Baas, M., Ten Velden, F. S., Van Dijk, E., & Feith, S. W. (2010). The neuropeptide oxytocin regulates parochial altruism in intergroup conflict among humans. Science, 328(5984), 1408–1411.
Domes, G., Heinrichs, M., Michel, A., Berger, C., & Herpertz, S. C. (2007). Oxytocin improves “mind-reading” in humans. Biological Psychiatry, 61(6), 731–733.
Feldman, R., Monakhov, M., Pratt, M., & Ebstein, R. P. (2016). Oxytocin pathway genes: Evolutionary ancient system impacting on human affiliation, sociality, and psychopathology. Biological Psychiatry, 79(3), 174–184.
Guastella, A. J., Mitchell, P. B., & Dadds, M. R. (2008). Oxytocin increases gaze to the eye region of human faces. Biological Psychiatry, 63(1), 3–5.
Insel, T. R., & Young, L. J. (2001). The neurobiology of attachment. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 2(2), 129–136.
Jurek, B., & Neumann, I. D. (2018). The oxytocin receptor: From intracellular signaling to behavior. Physiological Reviews, 98(3), 1805–1908.
Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435(7042), 673–676.
Marlin, B. J., Mitre, M., D’Amour, J. A., Chao, M. V., & Froemke, R. C. (2015). Oxytocin enables maternal behaviour by balancing cortical inhibition. Nature, 520(7548), 499–504.
Nitschke, J., Krol, S. A., & Bartz, J. A. (2018). Oxytocin and human sociality: An interactionist perspective on the “hormone of love”. In O. C. Schultheiss & P. H. Mehta (Eds.) International Handbook of Social Neuroendocrinology. Routledge Psychology Press.
Quintana, D. S., Rokicki, J., van der Meer, D., Alnaes, D., Kaufmann, T., Cordova-Palomera, A., Dieset, I., Andreassen, O. A., & Westlye, L. T. (2019). Oxytocin pathway gene networks in the human brain. Nature Communications, 10(1), 668.
Rilling, J. K., Demarco, A.C., Hackett, P.D., Chen, X., Gautam, P., & Stair, S. (2014). Sex differences in the neural and behavioral response to intranasal oxytocin and vasopressin during human social interaction. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 39, 237–248.
Ross, H. E., & Young, L. J. (2009). Oxytocin and the neural mechanisms regulating social cognition and affiliative behavior. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 30(4), 534–547.
Theodoridou, A., Rowe, A. C., Penton-Voak, I. S., & Rogers, P. J. (2009). Oxytocin and social perception: oxytocin increases perceived facial trustworthiness and attractiveness. Hormones & Behavoir, 56, 128–132.
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Bartz, J.A. (2020). Oxytocin, Social Effects in Humans. In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_102011-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_102011-1
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