Trust in a Bottle 658
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."
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'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.
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 three months, and it could possibly have had some more serious permanent damaging effects on him.
Re:Trust isnt a chemical, its a lack of logic. (Score:0, Interesting)
What I remember from my few years at Sun was that the management team was really good at blowing smoke up your ass and making you think that Sun was going to turn around. Every quarter you'd have to sit through some meeting where management would literally almost brainwash you into thinking that Sun was the center of the universe and that soon we would take over the entire computer industry. The thing that was scary was that despite all of the negative earnings and missed sales goals, they were really good at it, and after a while of working there you start to have the same type of groupthink and sheltered worldview that management has.
The fact of the matter is that Sun, at one point in time, had great people in a position where they could accomplish a lot. Nowadays, middle management actively sabotages anything remotely possible of success simply because they cannot tolerate the thought that an engineering team might create a technology that could save the company.
What you have now in Sun is typical of a lot of companies: Management wants to drive innovation through marketing and dictating to engineers what to create. We all know as engineers and geeks that this never works. True innovation does not come from the top down, it comes from the bottom up. Think Bill Joy and BSD Unix. These were not started because some team of unemployable middle managers decided that the industry needed an open operating system that anyone could write software for. These were started because a brilliant engineer had a vision and was given the right amount of time and freedom to create that vision in reality.
The sooner Sun tanks and all of the engineers regroup into garages and really start inventing again, the better, for all of us.