The Moral Molecule is a book by Dr. Paul Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University. This post has notes from the book featuring results of studies cited in the book.
• An experiment showed that subjects’ oxytocin levels were 50 percent higher when they received transfers of money based on someone’s decision to trust them.
• A study where patients received a massage and then received money from someone who chose to trust them showed that the willingness to reciprocate by giving money back increased by 243 percent.
• A study showed that oxytocin levels increased 47 percent in people who watched an emotionally moving video.
• A study using fMRI showed that subjects’ brains responded to images of people being harmed as if they themselves were being harmed.
• A study found that males were 27 percent less generous in an economic game after being infused with testosterone.
• An experiment showed that DHT became elevated in males after receiving an unfair offer in an economic game.
• A study showed that reward areas in the brains of males were activated when they observed non-cooperative game partners receiving a shock.
• A study found that women became less trusting after receiving small doses of testosterone.
• A study showed that using the word “partner” to describe a person led to 68 percent of people trusting that person, compared to only 33 percent when the word “opponent” was used.
• A study in the Caribbean showed that testosterone levels were higher when men played opponents from a neighboring village in a game of dominoes, compared to opponents from their own village.
• A brain imaging study of abuse victims showed that the amygdala was disengaged in people who had experienced trauma.
• A study showed that people with continually high levels of oxytocin were frequent nonreciprocators.
• A study found that children with autism have lower levels of oxytocin in their blood.
• An experiment involving the Ultimatum Game showed that 28 percent of participants with autism offered nothing, compared to only 3 percent of people from the control group.
• An experiment showed that autism increased emotional accuracy in men with high scores on the Autism Spectrum Quotient.
• A study found that people with social anxiety disorder had a much higher baseline level of oxytocin.
• Research shows that undergraduates majoring in economics (but not other academic majors) become less trusting and less generous in experiments as they progress from being freshman to being seniors.
• A study showed that four weeks of compassion meditation training led to a 33 percent increase in trust.
• An economic experiment found that evangelical Christians had stress levels 28 percent higher than the control group.
• An analysis of blood from tribespeople in Papua New Guinea found that they had very low levels of stress hormones.
• An analysis of data from 32 hunter-gatherer tribes showed that fewer than 10 percent of the members in each group were closely related.
• An analysis of data from the World Values Survey showed that tolerance and trust increase along with the average income in a country.
• A test in South Korea showed that oxytocin increased when people were using social networking sites.
• A study showed that subliminal images of money make people less helpful and less social.
• An experiment involving 130 volunteers found that oxytocin led to more trust in civic institutions, including government.
• An analysis of data from 6,800 people in 33 countries found that societies that come under threat become less tolerant.
• An analysis of 85 different variables showed that the strongest correlation was between happiness and trust.
• An experiment found that participants with the largest surge in oxytocin were the most trusting, reported greater satisfaction with life, reported greater resilience, had better romantic relationships, had more friends, and had lower levels of depression.
• An experiment conducted in a Seventh-day Adventist community found that the people who released the most oxytocin were the least religious.
