Oxytocin Double Trigger
Vera Morhenn examined whether munificence towards strangers could be manipulated through touch. In her experiment (see “Monetary sacrifice among strangers is mediated by endogenous oxytocin release after physical contact“), she split 96 male and female graduate students into three groups. The first and second received a professional massage but the third did not. Then the first and third group took part in a “trust game.”
Participants were paired at random and seated in front of a computer, physically removed from their anonymous partner. Each also got $10 in cash, supposedly for showing up. The rules stipulated that for each pair, one person, the giver, could cede a part of their money to the other, the trustee. This amount would then be tripled and credited to the trustee, who was subsequently prompted by the computer to sacrifice a part of his stash by returning some to the giver.
Morhenn took blood samples at the start and end of each game and looked for changes in oxytocin levels. She found no effect in the massaged group who did not participate in the game, implying that trust acts as some sort of trigger. But in the players the hormone rose in those who were massaged and fell slightly in those who were not.
Despite receiving statistically identical trust signals from givers, the massaged trustees with their higher oxytocin levels returned a whopping 240% more than their unrubbed counterparts. Women appear more susceptible than men to tactile manipulation.