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Trust in a Bottle
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Jun 02, 2005 08:55 PM
from the better-than-beer dept.
from the better-than-beer dept.
flosofl writes "The BBC has a report on oxytocin and its ability to skew our trust levels. 'The participants in the study played a game, in which they were split into "investors" and "trustees." The investors were then given credits and told they could chose whether to hand over zero, four, eight or 12 credits to their assigned trustee.' Some of the investors were given oxytocin via nasal spray. The results were surprising: 'Of 29 investors who were given oxytocin, 13 (45%) displayed "maximal trust" by choosing to invest highly, compared to six (21%) of the 29 investors who were given the dummy spray.' When the trustee was a computer, there was no difference between the two test groups."
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"Control" group? (Score:5, Funny)
Except they were *way* cooler....
Droid trustee? (Score:3, Insightful)
The stormtrooper stared blankly at Kenobi, as his masks surgery-room-grade air scrubbers quietly filtered the chemical. A second more, and he decided the old man was bullshitting him. A quick signal and a short hail of blaster fire later, the occupants of the speeder were smoldering corpses, and the droids were in the care of a professional deprogrammer.
Doesn't ha
Re:It's a BS experiment. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
So who makes the stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Nightclubs, sales offices, news conferences, shops, sprays, deodourants, perfumes etc etc etc. Actually it doesn't really matter if the specific delivery mechanism works, only that the person buying it has read the science and believes it does.
Corporate uses (Score:5, Insightful)
You are missing on how this will be abused. Marketing firms will do anything to get you to buy. They made TV so you get 12 minutes of a show you want, then 3 minutes of louder and brighter commercials. That stopped working too well, so the marketing firms started paying television show producers to place thier products in shows.
Marketing firms hire psychologists and doctors to find ways to get people attention, put the consumer in a more relaxed and willing mood to buy their product.
Look at all the commercials on television that are for weight loss. They show beautiful women and guys with rock hard abs, they praise the product like it changed their life. Then in the smallest possible letters the following is written: "atypical results". To anyone who has not scored over 700+ on the SAT verbal, that probably has little meaning, if you can even see it!!
So how will this new scent that increases trust be used. Don't be suprised if you walk by an advertising poster in a local shopping mall, and get a wiff of something that makes you really believe whatever the poster says. Je'n sait pas, mais je crois!!
But the greatest harm this will do is to make us less trusting of each other. We will become more callous and apathetic. Nuerotransmitters are not available in unlimited qualities. Once used, it takes a time until more is available. Also, since this scent works on a phisiological level, we will no longer be as trusting, the threashold for trust on a phisiological level will be increased. This is just like the tolerance for capsiacin, or hot peppers. The first time someone has a jalepenjo, it will taste much hotter than the 500th habanero someone eats, even though the habanero is 100X hotter a pepper. The first burn is always the worst, the body adjusts the threshold for a nueron to fire.
So, what will we have. More companies trying to push their product down our throat. They will blur the line between advertising and getting a physiological response. And as a society, we will increasingly become less trusting, more apathetic, and more miserable.
Parent
Re:Corporate uses (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Corporate uses (Score:3, Funny)
Umm hello... how about the most important use, getting nerds laid?
Re:Corporate uses (Score:5, Insightful)
It's used to induce labor and terminate pregnancy (see the prescribing information) [rxlist.com].
If a store started spraying it into the air and women started going into labor and having premature babies, the lawsuits and legal settlements would be astronomical.
Parent
Re:Corporate uses (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that these troublesome drugs are self-administered. Legislate against that and you've a problem. But this is something that would be used on others.
Think - you're not going to apply this chemical to make you more trusting, it'll be used on others. It's a chemical assault and should be illegal.
An interesting place to find debate on this sort of stuff is here [cognitiveliberty.org]
Re:Corporate uses (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:It's a BS experiment. (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, have you ever heard of Ecstacy?
Parent
Re:It's a BS experiment. (Score:3, Informative)
Prolonged and heavy use will result in actual, physical brain damage and degeneration. Bummer, really, I'm quite fond of the effects of XTC.
A friend of mine whos into chemistry and neurology says that you can probably take it once in a while without adverse effects. Like once or twice per year. Popping one every odd year has the added benefit that the pauses in between really tend to boost the (now rare trips)
Re:It's a BS experiment. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course the only victim here is the person expressing trustworthy signals while intentionally aiming for manipulation for its own ends, knowing the signals to be fake.
What seems to happen is that the subconsciousness of the "seller" is picking up on the structures and processes involved in faking trust, and the perceived benefit of such behaviour. Cons
Too Small of a Test (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too Small of a Test (Score:2)
Re:Too Small of a Test (Score:4, Informative)
29 people is plenty of subjects for a reliable statistical test. The t distribution is about equivalent to the normal distribution at about 30 samples. 30 samples is about the usual rule of thumb for adequate power for a cell in a behavioral experiment. But, you know, it really depends on the effect size of whatever you're studying.
Anyway, the right test to do here, just from the tiny snippet of info we're given about the study is a chi square test. According to TFA, a subject could invest 0, 4, 8, or 12 credits. If we assume that we would expect a uniform distribution of investment across these levels (and I don't know if that's a fair distrubtion to assume, perhaps normal is better--you'd expect more people to invest middle amounts than extremes, perhaps), then we expect 7.25 people to fall in each of the 4 cells. For just the oxytocin condition, they report 13 people invested 12 credits. Let's assume that the remaining 16 subjects were evenly distributed among the 0, 4. and 8 investment levels. That means 5 1/3 people in each of those cells. With those data, the chi square test gives you a p value of
Parent
Re:Too Small of a Test (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
But what is trust? (Score:2, Insightful)
How many people are led down the primrose path to Hell by some friend or lover who we trusted completely? Whether it be some sort of suddent infidelity or a constant wearing down of trust, that person eventually broke our trust.
Now, in the light of our experience, we look at all of our future relationships through the darkened glass of failed trust. Is it any wonder that half of all marriages end in divorce now? We can't open our hearts to those we love 100
Politicians... (Score:2)
For some reason I picture Honor Blackman flying over the electorate on election day, spraying this 'trust potion' from light aircraft.
**NEW** From RONCO! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:**NEW** From RONCO! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Political ads and Smellovision (Score:2)
When the trustee was a pregnant lady, however ... (Score:2)
Effects of virtual trustee? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its interesting that when a computer was the trustee, there was no measured effect from the oxytocin. If this effect is replicated for all non-human interaction, then the use of this on a larger scale would seem to be limited. However, there are interesting repercussions for the use of this kind of thing in business negotiations, where there can be control over the environment and a degree of trust could have a vital swing in decisions made
Being able to 'over-ride the fear of being betrayed', as it is put in the article could be a powerful factor in swaying decisions, and I would hope that by the time of any mass-market availability or application that ways and means of testing would be available for those environments that require 100% impartiality.
I bet they sprayed some on their research paper (Score:2, Funny)
Number of participants (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Number of participants (Score:3, Informative)
If it was a social psych. experiment, 29 participants would have been considered enough. I have no idea why.
I was in developmental psych. and was expected to get a minimum of 200 participants for my own study. Likewise, people in the cogntive psych. program had to get 100 or more participants.
Re:Number of participants (Score:4, Informative)
The standard deviation of a binomial distribution is sqrt(n.p.(1-p)) where n is the number of subjects and p is the probability of maximal trust.
Thus, out of a sample of 29 people and with p=0.21 the standard deviation is 2.2.
Thus, 13 is 3.2 standard deviations away from 6. There is only a 0.07% chance that these are from the same distribution.
Thus, they can conclusively conclude that this spray had a statistically significant effect on trust.
You can make it more complicated if you wish but the basic fact remains that you can get statistically significant results from small samples. In this case there is only a 0.07% chance that they are wrong.
Parent
Re:Number of participants (Score:5, Informative)
And N=58 (29 people per group) is pretty typical for single studies in the behavioral sciences. Ultimately, the grandparent is right -- this needs to be replicated. But that's true of single studies in any scientific field, no matter the sample size or p-value. This is an exciting enough discovery that you can bet lots of scientists are going to try to replicate it.
Parent
Sniffy Goodness (Score:2)
Whatever happened to that "smell-o-vision"-type odiferous computer add-on from a few years back? Is this the trick that Bill will use to keep us using Windows?
Seriously though, odours *are* powerful memory triggers. "Deja-Pew", sort of.
Shower == Trust Worthyness (Score:2)
that reminds me... (Score:2)
Humor impaired moderators: the preceding was an attempt at humor.
Oh, for a second there.... (Score:2)
If memory serves me correctly... (Score:2)
Re:If memory serves me correctly... (Score:5, Informative)
it's released:
- during sex
- when a mother holds her baby
- when nursing
- when two people are holding each other
I had a professor who called it "the Cuddle Drug". It's been thought to play a major part of the "bonding" process, parent/child as well as romantic relationships.
And no, it's not Oxycontin, which is a completely different thing.
m-
Parent
Say good bye to tin foil hats! (Score:2)
I'm interested to find out... (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt it affects it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the effect seems to be producable by a spray, it is entirely possible that the human body releases low levels of this stuff naturally. If that is indeed the case, it might be interesting to see what the levels are around "in person" celebrities - stage performers, those politicians who mingle with the crowd, etc. My guess would be that people who make it in such environments differ at this kind of chemical level from those who prefer to be kept at a distance (it's hard to see how chemical traces could get through a movie screen, for example).
My guess would also be that cult settings include (by accident or design) an exceptionally high concentration of this chemical. If you think about the "stereotypical" settings for such things, you are generally looking at highly charismatic people (see above theory), and very probably a high usage of all kinds of evaporating oils, incence, perfumes, etc. In such a setting, the adding of something that lowered mental resistance would seem to be more of a question of what form it took, rather than whether it was being done.
Despite the First and Seventh Amendments, I would think that it would be a very good idea to ban the willful use of any chemical that impairs reasoning or ability to trust, especially in any religious or political situation where abuse has the potential to be monsterous.
I would also suggest that the law on such matters as criminal insanity be adjusted to allow for this finding, as it would seem possible that a person's ability to tell right from wrong, or make rational judgements as to who to believe on certain matters, would be impaired only in the presence of the person they were around at the time, making it impossible for an independent psychologist to accurately assess the state of mind under laboratory conditions.
It would seem a grave miscarriage of justice to allow serious abusers of human chemical imperetives to be utterly free and lawfully able to continue that abuse, no matter what the consequences. Likewise, it would also seem to be a grave miscarriage of justice if victims of that abuse could be imprisoned or executed because the law had failed to recognize the reality and implications of that abuse.
This is not to sat that all criminals are really innocent victims, but rather that some unknown percentage may well be, especially where cults and charismatics are concerned. I think that the authorities should be taking this seriously. At least, more seriously and more rapidly than said cults and charismatics are.
Parent
Re:I'm interested to find out... (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case, that drug really fucked him up, it messed with his digestive system for those next th
Who's to say (Score:2)
Maybe it's the abscence of oxycontin that skews our trust levels to the negative.
If you ask people, they SAY they would prefer to live in a more trusting world. To the extent we can choose our attitudes instead of having our attitudes chosen by survival instinct would be a good thing.
Wait. I'd better call my broker and ask him how that VA software stock I bought is doing.
The significance of the computer? (Score:2)
When trustees were replaced by a computer, the oxytocin effect was no longer seen on the investors.
I find this fact to be of most interest.
But the question is, how was the computer being operated? was there a human typing things to the investors through a computer, or was it an AI asking various preprogrammed lines of questions and taking various approaches? The difference being, if its a human operating the computer (one of the same humans that were getting higher trust responses whe
what about in food (Score:2)
I think we should be careful about the food we consume at political events!!
On a serious note, [tinfoilhat] certain groups within the government (both her and in the UK) have a long long history of seeking behavioural modification drugs that affect the actions of people without a discernable altering series of symptoms.
I have a video of UK soldiers who were being filmed on training missions after receiving LSD unknowingly. In this case, they were given way too mu
It's cheap too... (Score:2)
Go get it all you
Good to know (Score:2)
Horny geeks, take note. (Score:5, Informative)
This hormone is produced when female nipples are stimulated [birthingnaturally.net]. Maybe you guys can get her to trust you.
Re:The question on all our minds... (Score:2)
Re:Such Hogwash (Score:3, Funny)
Different thing altogether.
Although with a jar of both I imagine you could have a heck of a party.
At the end of which, (wait for it), you'll probably need some OxyClean.
Re:Such Hogwash (Score:2)
err Re:duh (Score:2)
Re:Crap... (Score:2)