WEBVTT - Tainted Love Hormone 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.240 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind somehow stuff works 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:14.680 dot com. Hey, we're gonna stuff to blow your mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.800 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. We've 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.880 talked a bit about trust on here for about hormones, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.079 about oxytocin, because you know, we're always big into talking 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.360 about what are the what are the scientific reasons for 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.760 all these surface levels of interaction for all though the 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.519 ways that we we feel, the ways that we behave 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.680 like what's what's making us tick? And oxytocin often comes 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.960 up in terms of trust, in terms of love, in 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:48.599 terms of emotional connections. So it was probably a bit 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.199 too much for us to think, or for anyone to 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.720 to get the idea that this is just a purely 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.160 positive thing, that there's something in the human body and 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.240 our in all of our the machinery that under lies 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.960 who we are, that there's one substance that's just nothing 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.240 but feel good in a jar. It's not the platonic ideal. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.240 And if anything, this, this idea that oxytocin could have 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.199 a dark side, is just more evidence of dud the 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:18.080 duality of things right, And we've talked about oxytocin really 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:22.800 in terms of cuddling and hugging. Um, that whole idea 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.759 that if you wrap someone in an embrace for twenty 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.520 seconds or more, that you're giving them just the right 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.480 amount of pressure that your body will actually begin to 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:36.240 produce oxytocin. Now, I want anybody like that idea, and 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.399 I think it's great. Totally in favor of twenty second 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.800 hugs all right, But between consending adults, we yes, we 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:46.720 will this sort of like hug pile up hug club thing. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.680 I'm not behind by the way, um, but we will 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.040 revisit this idea later as we talk about the dark 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:57.360 side of oxytocin. So where do we get this, this 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.320 idea that's that oxytocin is the super feel good a drug. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:02.200 The thing is, we can kind of we can kind 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.200 of lay this at one individual's feet for the most part. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.720 One uh one one doctor love one love doctor uh 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.040 an individual who you've seen on TED talks up there 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.360 with his microphone preaching the word of oxytocin and making 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.160 a very compelling argument. As individuals who give TED talks, 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:25.160 at least the more recent ones, often do you totally 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.400 buy into it? And you're like, yes, the feel good hormone, 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.280 the mother hormone, the hug hormone, the kiss hormone. Let 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.800 me have some of that. Yeah, and we'll talk about 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.600 Dr Paul Zack ak the love doctor, in a moment. 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.760 But I wanted just to mention the oxytocin is an 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.760 extract from the human posterior pituitary gland, and it was 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.240 discovered in nineteen o nine when the British pharmacologists or 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.840 Henry H. Dale, found that it could contract the uterus 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.680 of a pregnant cat. And of course that's another way 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.560 in which oxytocin shows up right, not just in cuddling 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.000 or um, you know, acts of love making, but also experiments, 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:05.760 cat experimentation and basically mammalian birth right um. According to 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.880 Ed Young, though, we have taken oxytocin as as the 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:10.960 sort of panacea for all ills, and we'll talk more 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.880 about that with regards to Paul Zack. But I didn't 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.000 want to say that the hormone is found in everything 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.280 from octopuses to sheep, and it's evolutionary roots stretched back 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.000 a half a billion years, and for decades, animal studies 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.399 have shown the oxytocin is important for social interactions. So 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.079 for example, if you block the hormone UM, monogamous vowles 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.160 will actually become more promiscuous and use neglect their newborn 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.680 lambs if they don't have access to that oxytocin. So 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.680 you could see how it would be informing our ideas 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:49.400 of UM connection, bonding, love, and and even in the 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.880 whole sort of birth and death cycle that we have 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:57.040 these notions about how we go along here in society. Yeah, 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.480 all these social animal interactions that we in evitably have, 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.960 all of these additional emotional layers that we wrap up 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.400 in as humans. Uh. At the scene of each crime, 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.080 oxytocin so like that's the thread that runs through all 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:11.800 of them. So of course we end up focusing on that, 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.560 and then as it's reported and championed it uh, it 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.800 increasingly becomes seen as this magical feel good elixir that 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.160 it flows through us. You're right, because there are accounts 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.760 of being released when you tweet something UM and you dance. Yes, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.279 you know, It's just it shows up everywhere. And I 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.680 think that is what some researchers will say is the 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:35.240 problem is that people are looking more at the results 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.880 and not necessarily looking at the chemical and why it 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.200 is produced. Um. So again, let's let's talk about Paul 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:43.960 Zack though, because he kind of is the guy that 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.160 you have to point to who at least brought this 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:52.120 idea of oxytocin as this utopian chemical to a lot 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.120 of people's imaginations. Yeah, he's an American neuro economist and 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:01.880 he even refers to himself as doctor Love. So he 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.240 really presses this idea that that that not only is 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.320 it at the root of all these uh uh, these 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.599 positive social interactions, but that it can or at least 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:13.880 has the potential to change the world, that it can 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.080 be used almost offensively for the social betterment of the 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.640 human race. Now, he actually even calls it the morality 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:25.039 chemical because of some of his studies that he did. 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.320 Many different variations on, by the way, but the basic 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.680 premises that there's something called the trust game, and this 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.360 is when a person player one, is given some money 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.800 and told to send a portion of it to the 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.440 second person who is player too. Now player two has 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.479 a one off choice to either accept or reject the proposal, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.640 and if Player to rejects, then neither one of them 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:51.240 get any money whatsoever. But if player to accepts, the 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.920 money is split according to the proposal. So again, here's 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.120 this idea that you know, there's some sort of morality 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:02.320 in in um generosity at play here, and typically a 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.240 low offer less than a third of the player's initial 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:11.400 endowment UM is rejected as stingy, ensuring that both players 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.120 getting are getting nothing. And that's where that sort of 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.240 morality comes into, because even though someone is offering another 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.320 person in a certain amount of money, if you if 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:21.200 I offer you ten cents, you might be like, what, 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.279 in no way, that's not enough. I'm not even gonna 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.200 take it, and then neither one of us get anything. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.240 So when Zach tested the blood of players who had 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.200 demonstrated trustworthy behavior, he found that their oxytocin levels had 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:36.240 increased in proportion to the monetary transfer. And he did 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.279 this again and again um, as I said, just with 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:44.839 different scenarios, getting more and more philanthropic. Right, So, sometimes 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:50.440 sometimes players would give to UM a third party and 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.680 they would begin to see these spikes again an oxytocin 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.440 and the act of their generosity. And so he's sitting 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.919 there making this case that perhaps just the presence of 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.520 oxytocin could be enough to change the way that we 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.320 operate in the world. Right, and as no surprise, as 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.400 though we're looking at some links yesterday, you can go 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.600 on Amazon and you can buy oxytocin. You can buy 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:18.440 there's one called liquid Trust that that doesn't sound creepy 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.400 at all. It's in a spray canister, um, so that 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.120 you can make people trust you supposedly. UM. I don't know. 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.240 I haven't tried the product, but my guess is that 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.120 it doesn't work. The reviews seem to think it didn't work. 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.320 Now I have it just being piped into the air 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.640 dex Here no evidence that anybody is getting any more 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:40.000 generous with their sandwiches. So one one of the things 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.560 that we're gonna get into the particulars of this. But 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.720 I think that the route here is that that it's 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.160 that that oxytocin ends up being presented as this, uh, 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.320 this positive hormone, as this emotional hormone, is this morality 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.640 hormone when it's in a sense it is. It is 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.320 a social hormone, and it is it definitely isn'tvolved in 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:05.800 different social interactions. But are all social interactions positive? No, not, 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.320 not in the animal world, not in the human world. 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.480 And even the emotional responses in the human world that 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.640 we see as positive. When you strip them away and 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.040 you start looking at how they work as an organism, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.440 you see just how much human bs is involved there. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.640 You know, you can easily make the make the the 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:25.600 the argument that this whole hormonal rush and the attachment 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.840 been in the bond between between parent and child. I mean, 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.600 that's just about the organism surviving just gets down to 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.280 the root genetic mission that in and of itself is 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.080 completely devoid of love and understanding. All right, we're gonna 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.559 get to the bottom of this of the much more 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.080 nuanced versioning understanding that we are having of oxytocin in 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:58.200 a moment. But let's take a quick break. All right, 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.960 we're back. Let's talk about C twoson and how actually 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.839 has been showing up in studies is taking on a 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:11.720 far different role um talking about envy and schaden freud. Yes, 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.880 now in they of course we've discussed in detail. We 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.199 did a whole episode about it during our exploration of 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.679 the Seven Deadly sin in the is is when you 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.040 you see something that you want, or you see something 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.760 in another person and you maybe you don't even want it, 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.480 but you just sort of detest that. It's there you 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.400 might even just want to destroy it. But but you 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:37.200 have this intense negative response to something in somebody else 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.079 or off somebody else, And then there's schaden freud. But 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.360 that's when something unfortunate happens to another person inside you 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.320 sort of celebrate when you see or hear about it, right, yes, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.560 which is it's not a great emotion, right, but all 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.280 of this at some point or another have probably experienced it. 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:55.560 Who doesn't like to see their friends fail every now 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:57.760 and then, just just to feel a little better. But 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.240 it could be in front of me, right, Yes, yeah, 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:02.880 I think, and that's probably I bet, I bet that 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.840 if you had some sort of widespread study on this, 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.680 you'd probably see it's more in front of me than enemy, right, yeah, 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.560 because your enemy, you know, that's because it's I feel 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.360 like part of the schaden freud a situation is that 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:18.959 you feel good about it, but you also feel bad 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.920 about it, like you know, you're not supposed to feel it. Well, 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.160 you don't only feel schaden freud about you know, a 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.559 bitter enemy, uh, you know, falling in defeat. That's more 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.720 just you know, the pure victory of overcoming your adversaries. Well, 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.200 that might be a clue as to why oxytocin plays 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.960 a part in shane freud, because if you think about it, 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:41.040 as you said, oxytocin is really the social hormone. If 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.360 you feel closer to someone that you know, then perhaps 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.960 you're not going to dwell in that arena of emotions. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.760 So I wanted to point out that Simone Chamai to 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.280 Sourcie at the University of Haifa and Israel showed that 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.800 as well as promoting trust and generosity, oxytocin can heighten 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.360 feelings of envy and shaden freud. This is in the 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:04.720 journal Biological Psychiatry. When volunteers played a gambling game, those 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:09.800 who inhaled the hormone gloated more when they beat other players. 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.480 They also reported more acute stubs of jealousy and when 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:18.080 the tables were turned. Okay, now that gets us into 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:22.480 more of this again social construct here, and you think 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.480 about how we treat one another and how we are 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.440 sometimes biased when we make decisions because of the relationships 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.120 we have with people. Yeah, I mean everywhere you go 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.200 in human culture, obviously they're all these divisions, their divisions 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.600 of race, their divisions of of economic status, of show 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.840 social status, of of your status in a working environment, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.480 all these these barriers come into play, and in many 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:51.480 cases artificial barriers that are just purely social inform but 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.000 you end up with all these different packs or tribes. 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.760 And we've seen this again and again that even if 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.440 two people are in a room and they have something 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:00.640 in common is say, the same shut on or the 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.320 same color, they tend to just subconsciously feel more connected 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.600 to that person. So the link can be so tenuous, 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:09.840 and yet we make that connection Oh I have that 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.120 shirt or oh you like that band as well, Yeah, 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.800 because on some level we want to we want to 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.240 project our own feelings onto that person and believe that 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.240 they're like us. That's all. We have icebreakers. So I 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:23.720 know everyone hates icebreakers, but if if one stupid game 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.040 of ice breaking trust falls or passing notes around, if 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.920 that can prevent one office X murder, then I say 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.240 go for it absolutely. And actually, as an aside, since 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.800 we just did an episode on vulnerability, that's a good 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.160 example of when you show your vulnerability, you show yourself 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.839 and there's more of a commonality there. But Caroline, the 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.679 clerk of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, she found 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:49.079 that people under the hormones influence became more cooperative with 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.600 one another only if they have some information about their partner. 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.440 That when they were paired with an anonymous stranger, they 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.959 became less cooperative. Now that was some real insight, because again, 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.400 oxytocin has been touted as this this bonding agent. Yeah, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.000 like something that's just breaking down barriers. You pump it 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.160 into a room and uh and two bitter enemies are 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.560 just gonna embrace in a hug. Not so, because our 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.880 social interactions are also about divisions. It's I mean from 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.120 a just an evolutionary standpoint. I mean, think to that 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.360 scene in two thousand and one, uh, Space Odyssey where 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.320 you know, it's tribes of monkeys beating each other up 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.640 with with bones and that social interaction, and and no 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.240 doubt there was there was a little oxytocin involved in 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.560 that situation. Not that that actually happened. I'm not I'm 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.440 not of the mind that that seemed involved actual apes 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:40.720 killing each other. Well, I think the problem too is 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.120 that people when they looked at Paul's acts work, and 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.080 he was a big proponent of oxytosin and basically saying like, oh, well, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.360 they're there in the London riots. If only, you know, 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:50.400 people weren't high on their testos room and they were 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.280 high on oxytocin, that wouldn't have happened. People said, no, 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.400 that's that's a cultural thing that that went on. It 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.440 had to do with economics, that had to do with 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.959 um education. There were there's so many different factors involved there. 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.840 And Paul Za kept saying, well, no, I don't think so, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.000 because because our results are coming from the chemicals which 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.600 are measurable in the blood, and that's far more accurate 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.800 than say, fuzzy images from a brain scan, we think 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.680 that there's more hard evidence. But he, you know, I 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:21.680 don't think that he or some of the researchers at 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.480 that time really took into account the cultural aspects. And 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.640 I wanted to mention that he's young. Kim of the 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:33.280 University of California and Santa Barbara found that in South Korea, 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.840 where it's usually a faux pas to sort of burden 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.680 your friends with any of your problems, he found that 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:44.120 people who were certain carriers of this gene um how 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.280 to to explain this, We've talked about this before. Actually, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.640 there are some people who have an a variant of 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.200 this gene and some people have a G variant and 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.720 basically it helps doc the oxytocin. So you you know 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.760 the receptors. You're gonna have much more oxytocin flowing through 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.240 you if you have this G variant. Okay, So this 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.440 is where we get into the people who are genetically huggers. Us. 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.720 We're talking about this hug acts. People are hugging all 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.040 the time. They might be needing a fix because there 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:14.120 they really like that oxytocin. Well, what this researcher found 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.160 is that, um, the people who are the hug junkies, 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.280 or who should be the hug junkies, actually solace far 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.960 less than they're they're non caring variants, and that at 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.960 the end of the day, it's it's the social trait, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.040 it's the social sensitivity, and it's not you know, this 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.480 idea that you're responding to oxytocin is not determined by 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.680 biology but by culture. And here's a good example of 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.560 people who are acting in a certain way even though 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.200 biologically you should say, ah, yeah, those are the people 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.880 who are going to seek solace most often. Now, of course, 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.160 mindset plays a huge role here as well, and we 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.440 look at the research from Jennifer Bart's from the Mount 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.120 Sinai School of Medicine, if you found several responses that 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.080 depend on a person's minds, that showed that socially secure 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:03.200 people remember mothers in a more positive light after inhaling oxytocin, 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.320 while anxious ones remember their mothers as less caring and 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.080 more distant. So in that brief example, you can see 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.800 how the oxytocin YES is having it's having effect on 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:14.960 the individual, but it kind of depends on the mindset, 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.800 the existing wiring or the existing plumbing when you when 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.960 you pump this stuff in, YES actually show the oxytocin 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:27.240 hinders hinders trust and cooperation among people with borderline personality disorder. 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.280 So again it cannot be at this reductionist like you 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.479 just give someone some oxytocin and they're going to cooperate. 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:35.960 You can't just get that bottle of liquid trust and 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.480 just start hosing people down thinking that it's going to 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.360 universally have this positive effect on the right because you 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.240 have the cultural aspect to it, and then you just 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.440 have the mindsets um So some people actually may act 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:51.000 in ways that are counter intuitive to the whole social 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.480 bonding situation, and that brings up this question of why 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.960 why would oxytocin act in those various ways, And much 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:00.680 of that is still a miss free but there are 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.960 a couple of theories. So back to Bart's now, she 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.680 would say that the key to understanding what the hormone 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.600 does is really in talking about its function rather how 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.280 and where it shows up. And there are a couple 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.960 of theories out there. Oxytocin could help reduce anxiety and fear, 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.040 or it could simply motivate people to seek out social connections, 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.960 which would account for a rise and trust and cooperation 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:29.639 in some people, but also explain why oxytocin sniffers gravitate 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:34.159 towards others resembling themselves, and why people who fear social 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.760 rejection are not necessarily better off with more of the hormone. 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.879 So if you have anxiety in someone and uh, they 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.840 get a dose of oxytocin and they they're they're fear 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.480 arousal is heightened, then that's just sort of playing to 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.840 what they're already experiencing right now and helping them to 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.600 what they think battle is. You know, these these uh threats, 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.159 We're gonna take one more quick break and when we 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:11.040 come back more on this exciting topic. So what is 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.720 this this all pointing towards towards pointies work The obvious 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.840 that oxytocin is not a magic bullet. It's not something 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.240 that you can put in a can spraying somebody's face 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.480 and it's going to fix whatever is ailing them. But 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:24.720 and as we're saying that it's there are plenty of 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.439 studies going on right now. I think what forty different 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:32.480 clinical studies are currently ongoing about oxytocin, and and they're 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.240 exploring it with a more nuanced understanding for the most 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.040 part of what oxytocin is. So we're hoping to to 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.960 get to get a better understanding of how it works 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:44.600 and how and how it is engaging in all these 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.480 these show social interactions and there's the possibility that we 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.240 will learn how to better treat certain conditions with oxytopes 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:55.639 right Like, a lot of these clinical trials are looking 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.960 at autism and schizophrenia because the idea is if you 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.720 if you give a child who is autistic a dose 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.800 of this, that perhaps he or she will heighten their 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.159 ability to connect to bond, which is one of the 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.520 things that when you look at the autism spectrum. There's 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:16.639 there's sometimes a lack of that um. But researchers are saying, 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.280 don't go online and get the spray. First of all, 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.400 the concentrations aren't going to be enough to to really 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.760 do anything. And second of all, if you look at 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.520 these other findings that say that it can unheighten um, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.840 you know, this, this envy, this schiden freud um, these 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.679 other sort of antisocial aspects of it, were not certain 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.120 how that's going to play out with people who might 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:42.360 have autism or schizophrenia. So, you know, let the let 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.800 the research continue on that so that they can get 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:47.760 a better picture of it. Yeah, because it is a 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.639 large extent the each individual's wiring, each individual's plumbing is 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:55.080 a little different and sometimes dramatically different depending on what's 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.399 going on there neurologically. So spraying one person down with 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:04.160 oxytose and spring another one down potentially vastly different effects. 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.679 So yeah, and you know, and I say, do you 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.520 not try at home? And I do understand how in 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.160 one level sort of disappointing because of its associations with 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:19.200 all the sort of kitten and rainbows um existence, you know, childbirth, 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:24.120 breast milk production, cuddling, but you know, it's a chemical 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.919 and it's it's far more complex, and we, above everything, 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.480 we want science to give us these silver bullets they 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.200 want to We want science to say, here's the vaccine 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.880 for this, here is the treatment that fixes this, Here 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.440 is a is another way that we can address something 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.760 that is wrong with an individual or even with us 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.679 as a species. Well, yeah, I was gonna say, I 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:49.240 wasn't actually gonna bring this up, but you and I 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.040 have talked about this before. Ted. The conference has come 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.160 under fire sometimes because it it does deliver these big 0:20:55.200 --> 0:21:01.520 ideas and sort of silver bullets, you know, solutions, and 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:03.960 some people have said that it can be sort of 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.359 reductionist in that way, and Paul Zacks Ted talk is 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.359 really great and it is really uplifting, but at the 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.480 end of the day, it's it's you know, humanity is 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.760 much messier than that. So there you have it. Oxytocin. 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.200 We've covered it before. Now we've covered a little more, 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.840 and at this time we've we've we've added a little 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.760 darkness to our discussions of it. So so take that 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.120 with you as you as you observe yourself either engaging 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:33.240 in a twenty second hug or feeling the seething envy 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.480 as you look at your friends in your Facebook feed. 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.199 You know what I'm going as for Halloween? What are 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.560 you going in? An aggressive oxytocin hugger. See doesn't that 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.359 totally recast your idea of hugging? Now? Yeah? Yeah, like 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:47.760 a like a junkie, like I just name a fix 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.560 and a fix and I am the everybody else who 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.240 gets the hugs and I don't. There was a reason 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.320 we hugged. There's a recent skit on Key and Peel 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:01.480 where it's where there's a baseball player that truly into 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.040 slapping other baseball players butts and uh and he ends 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:06.600 at the end of the other baseball players on the 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:08.359 team tell him, no, we just we don't want you 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.040 to slapper butts anymore. Um, you just do it way 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.440 too much and you're just way too into it and uh. 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:15.000 And at the end of the episode, he's like a 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.960 he's he's like a junkie with withdrawals, just asking you know, 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.280 for one more slap, to one more butt uh and 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:24.639 and and you know it's silly and goofy, but but really, 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.879 I mean a social interaction like slapping a teammates, but 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.760 there's invariably oxytocin involved there, and if one is a 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:36.800 type but slapper, then then the situation is very akin 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:40.480