Oxytocin — the Love Drug’s Double Nature

Hans Gets Thrown Under the Bus

Gratuitous Bryan Ferry PR Photo

The big picture

• The neurotransmitter, oxytocin, both up-regulates and down-regulates empathy. It makes Us more us-like and Them more them-like.
• Our Us vs Them reaction is fast thinking — a knee jerk response
• Since it can’t be eliminated, it must be recognized, understood, and managed
• Failure to do so opens us up to the worst sort of emotional and political exploitation.

Us

Paul Zak is a researcher and the Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University.

In 2011 he had a hit TED talk.

Trust, morality — and oxytocin?

Paul’s work focused on the neurotransmitter oxytocin and its role in up-regulating empathy, altruism, and morality.

I‘ll let Paul speak for himself:

I wanted to know if there’s a chemistry of morality. I wanted to know if there was a moral molecule.