IT IRKED Hamlet that “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” Little is known about the biological foundations of morality. Wrong can be done for the right reasons and dishonesty can protect others. Deception itself is driven by complex chemical processes—not all of them maliciously motivated, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the effects of oxytocin, a signalling molecule in the brain that is sometimes referred to as the “love hormone”.Falling in love releases oxytocin from the hypothalamus, encouraging coupling between doe-eyed romantics. It also triggers contractions during childbirth and bonding during breastfeeding. The latest study of its actions, though, suggests it has darker effects too. Shaul Shalvi, from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel, and Carsten De Dreu, from the University of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, have discovered that it encourages people to lie—not for themselves, but for the good of the group they are part of.Such altruism emerged from an experiment in which Dr Shalvi and Dr De Dreu randomly assigned 120 male volunteers (women were excluded in case any were unknowingly pregnant) to one of two groups. Members of one were to receive a dose of oxytocin from a nasal spray; members of the other to sniff a placebo. Half the volunteers were then further...
from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1k3tD0e
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