The research conducted by Paul Zak about trust, morality, and oxytocin was very enlightening as well as, entertaining to watch the video. Watching the video first made reading his article easier to understand and follow. His research suggests that oxytocin is a moral molecule that makes people moral and trustworthy. The research conducted was very convincing and provides several different experiments to support the claim.
Paul Zak describes Oxytocin (OT) as a molecule found in only mammals, and in rodents it was known to make mothers care for their offspring. In humans it is known to facilitate birth and breastfeeding in women and released by both sexes during sex. OT is produced in the brain and in the blood. Paul calls it a trust molecule or moral molecule. The textbook definition of oxytocin is “A hormone, released from the posterior pituitary that triggers milk letdown in the nursing female” (Breedlove, 2013, pg. 138). Trust according to Paul is indispensable in relationships and a key factor in economics and politics because without it our society would breakdown. He believes that you cannot have morality without trustworthiness, and that trustworthy people are more prosperous. These definitions are supported by research, as well as, personal experiences and beliefs.
Paul Zak’s research included several different experiments: laboratory, real life experiments, and social media experiments. Research of a large body of animals indicated that OT is a contributing factor to understanding why people trust. Further research was conducted on rodents, which began in the late 1970’s. This research discovered that OT and arginine vasopressin molecules promoted affiliation with others. The animal work indicated that OT in some ways fa...
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...ect results to the role of oxytocin and how this molecule can be labeled as the morality molecule. Other possibilities and explanations need to be researched to be ruled out to conclude and support the function of OT. There is a wealth of research that has been done over the past few years and many different scientist have introduced the idea that oxytocin is a moral molecule that make people more trustworthy and allows people to be morally right. With any research there is always negativity and scrutiny that comes along with it. Most of the research found supports that OT is in fact molecule and being injected with OT or having higher levels of OT can be linked to causing people to do morally and trustworthy things. I agree with the definitions provided, and the measures of research constructed, but still believe there are other explanations not properly explored.
A characteristic of humanity is social contact, each individual needs significant social interaction. Not only must humans have interaction, but must share things in common to care and love. This h...
Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G. L., & Jordan, A. H. (2008). Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(8), 1096-1109.
Vasopressin has long been implicated in the memory of faces and is thus useful for research on recall and recognition of faces. Because of the role vasopressin plays in relationships, it is important to consider its value in affecting romantic relationships and perception of romantic partner's faces. In a study by Thompson and colleagues (2004) researchers looked at how vasopressin administration affects responses to happy, angry and neutral faces in terms of attention, and arousal and physiological measures like corrugator supercilii electromyograms (EMG), heart rate and skin conductance (Thompson, Gupta, Miller, Mills, & Orr, 2004). This was based on previous experiments with the effect of oxytocin on facial perception. Neutral faces were found to elicit higher responses in the EMG. They argued that because the faces were ambiguous having been taken from Paul Ekman's series of faces, vasopressin may have lead participants to view those neutral faces in a more aggressive way causing that increased EMG response. This study demonstrates that there is a link between vasopressin and facial recognition responses and further studies have added on to this. In a follow up study in 2006, they looked at vasopressin effects on perception of friendliness for both men and women on pictures of same sex faces. They found that the results of vasopressin depended on the gender as women were friendlier when presented with same sex faces (Thompson, George, Walton, Orr, & Benson, 2006). Interestingly, they did not repeat the study to see the effect of vasopressin between both sexes seeing opposite sex pictures. In men, however, the familiarity of the romantic partner when combined with insecurity would decrease the per...
...Virtue, Personality, and Social Relations: Self-Control as the Moral Muscle." Journal of Personality 67.6 (1999): 1165-194. Print.
We are intrinsically social species and as a result, we have various chemical balances that cause us to feel and
Von Drehle, David. "Broken Trust." Time 182.22 (2013): 40. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Raine, A. & Yang,Y. (2006). Neural foundations to moral reasoning and antisocial behavior. Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience.
Trust is “a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another “(Rousseau, 1998).
In “The Moral Instinct”, Steven Pinker argues for a sixth sense that humans have that is morality. This sense, just like the other five, can be skewed and mislead by evolution and culture of humanity. If humans can remove these illusions, Pinker believes that a universal morality can be achieved. He believes that people are born with a basic knowledge of morality and eventually learn to apply moral reasoning. Pinker explains how secular and evolutionary psychology are corrosive to morality. Ultimately, He agrees with the theory that Anthropologists Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske propose of a universal morality that divides into five themes of harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity. Pinker believes that these themes can be interpreted
Gurtman, M. B. (1992b). Trust, distrust, and interpersonal problems: A circumplex analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 989-1002.
Some years ago a number of psychologists hypothesized that the presence of fear will lead to an individual to want to associate with other persons. In a certain experiment, some subjects were casually divided into two diverse groups. The high fear group was told that in the event of the experiment they could be getting very painful electric shocks. The low fear group on the other hand was told that the received shock would be just like a tender touch. Both of the groups were asked whether they preferred to wait alone or have company of others who were also being shocked. When a suggestively larger percentage of the subjects of high fear group asked to have company, the researchers settled that high fear leads to an increase in the desire to associate with others.
In the article “What makes us moral” by Jeffrey Kluger, he describes how morality is defined and how the people follow rules. Kluger discusses about scientific research that has been done to point out the important reasons of morality. Kluger explains that a person’s decision to do something good or bad is based on empathy, that humans tend not to do bad to those they sympathize with. Kluger also compares humans with animals and thinks that morality is the only thing that separates us from animals. I do agree with Kluger that people are born with a sense of right and wrong, but we should be taught how to use it. We learned to be nicer to those around us because we already know the type of person they are, and the morality we learned as children
Trust is a pretty big subject to expand on, but now we need to move on to the aspect I
Murder, robbery, prostitution, rape; what exactly makes people partake in these crimes? The debate of Nature vs Nurture has never failed to raise questions about people’s personalities and actions. Whether a person commits a crime because of their innate character vs the way they were raised is something that people have been trying to understand for years. Due to this fact, the biosocial perspective of criminology does the best job at explaining criminal behavior because it combines the aspects of nature vs. nurture through various types of family, twin, and adoption studies and studies of the brain.
...ived thus far through logical reasoning and inquiry, the process in which one uses to incite the recollection of morality can still be useful. Although my thinking maybe fallible, I cannot find adequate evidence to refute that our innate knowledge of morality enables us to discern the intent and means that evoke our actions yielding a moral or immoral action.