Trusting beyond your circle of hellos

Many people still think that behavioral traits like love, empathy and trust are the exclusive purview of the social sciences and religion. But studies in the past decades have revealed to us the march of molecules inside our own bodies that affect our personalities. Now, it is no longer heretical or cold to suggest that the traits that make up who you are could partly come from the dance of molecules inside you. 

Oxytocin is one of the molecules getting more attention these days because it is the one responsible for that “touchy feely” behavior. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a new spray containing that substance that made men more sensitive. This week, I came across what could be its opposite — testosterone. Testosterone, which both men and women have, is associated with “dominance” and “competition.” It seems that it is also responsible for a level of guardedness in individuals toward unfamiliar faces.   

We naturally trust faces we know so “familiar” faces were not included in the study. But humans compared to other mammals, are more trusting of unfamiliar faces. So the experiment conducted successive tests where they showed 24 females “standard unfamiliar faces” used in psych testing for trustworthiness. The subjects were females because it is already known how long it takes for a certain dose of testosterone to affect the female brain. Neither the subjects nor the ones administering the test knew which group was given a dose of testosterone and those that were given a placebo. The experiment revealed that those who were too trusting in the first run trusted less after receiving a shot of testosterone.

The study was done by Peter A. Bos, David Terburg, and Jack van Honk from Utrecht University, the Netherlands and University of Cape Town, South Africa and entitled “Testosterone decreases trust in socially naïve humans.” It was published in the June 7, 2010 online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the USA.

The researchers think that what is most interesting in the study is that testosterone affected those who were too trusting or “socially naive” as they put it in the study. Testosterone did not make the ones who were “neutral” judge more faces to be less trustworthy. They think that this is nature’s way of making those who trust too much adapt to a level that is just “right” — something that is suited for a level-field competition, enabling you to have better chances at survival or success. So if oxytocin is the “trust” hormone, then maybe testosterone is the distrust hormone, the ebb and flow of trust you assign to other people who are not within your own circle of hellos.

This makes me think about the balance of oxytocin and testosterone we possess as a people. Historically, we Filipinos have always been so open to strangers who come at the doorstep of our shores. If history could be told by a single molecule, we really look like the Republic of Oxytocin. Think of what would have happened had we just had a little more shot of testosterone in those times when we were negotiating with unfamiliar faces. Our history may have turned out differently and Independence Day would have been meaningless to us.

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