Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism
Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1015316108
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发表时间：
2011-01-25
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Handgraaf, Michel J. J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
De Dreu, Carsten K. W.;Greer, Lindred L.;Handgraaf, Michel J. J.
人类种族中心主义--认为自己的群体比其他群体重要和优越的倾向--造成了群体间的偏见，助长了偏见、仇外心理和群体间的暴力。基于种族中心主义也促进了群体内的信任、合作和协调的想法，我们推测民族中心主义可能受到脑后叶催产素的调节，脑下催产素是一种促进群体内成员之间合作的多肽。在双盲、安慰剂对照设计中，男性自行注射催产素或安慰剂，并私下执行计算机指导的任务，以衡量以种族为中心的群体内偏爱和群体外贬损的不同表现。实验1和实验2使用内隐联想测验来评估组内偏爱和组外贬损。实验3使用非人性化任务来评估人类在多大程度上将次要的、独特的人类情感归因于他们的组内和组外。实验4和实验5让参与者选择牺牲一个被提名为小组内或小组外的个人来拯救一个更大的集体的生命。结果表明，催产素会产生群体间偏见，因为催产素会激发群体内的偏爱，并在较小程度上激发群体外的贬低。这些发现质疑了催产素是一种不分青红皂白的“爱情药物”或“拥抱化学物质”的观点，并表明催产素在群体间冲突和暴力的出现中起到了一定作用。
Human ethnocentrism-the tendency to view one's group as centrally important and superior to other groups-creates intergroup bias that fuels prejudice, xenophobia, and intergroup violence. Grounded in the idea that ethnocentrism also facilitates within group trust, cooperation, and coordination, we conjecture that ethnocentrism may be modulated by brain oxytocin, a peptide shown to promote cooperation among in-group members. In double-blind, placebo-controlled designs, males self-administered oxytocin or placebo and privately performed computer-guided tasks to gauge different manifestations of ethnocentric in-group favoritism as well as out-group derogation. Experiments 1 and 2 used the Implicit Association Test to assess in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. Experiment 3 used the infrahumanization task to assess the extent to which humans ascribe secondary, uniquely human emotions to their in-group and to an out-group. Experiments 4 and 5 confronted participants with the option to save the life of a larger collective by sacrificing one individual, nominated as in-group or as out-group. Results show that oxytocin creates intergroup bias because oxytocin motivates in-group favoritism and, to a lesser extent, out-group derogation. These findings call into question the view of oxytocin as an indiscriminate "love drug" or "cuddle chemical" and suggest that oxytocin has a role in the emergence of intergroup conflict and violence.