Paul Zak: Trust, morality - and oxytocin

Summary

The speaker explores human morality through the lens of biology, focusing on the molecule oxytocin, which fosters trust, empathy, and social bonding. Through experiments involving money, trust, and social interactions, the speaker demonstrates how oxytocin plays a pivotal role in moral behavior. He links moral sentiments to both human biology and social dynamics, suggesting that our capacity for trust and empathy is rooted in oxytocin. The speaker also humorously shares personal anecdotes, experiments at weddings, and even skydiving, emphasizing how simple acts like hugging can increase oxytocin and enhance well-being.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Human beings are unique because we possess fully developed moral sentiments, and we're obsessed with understanding morality.
• 👩‍👦 The speaker’s obsession with morality stems from his mother, Sister Mary Marastela, and his time as an altar boy.
• 🧪 After a decade of research, the speaker discovered that oxytocin is the 'moral molecule,' influencing trust and empathy in humans.
• 🐭 Oxytocin is an ancient molecule found in mammals and is linked to trust and bonding behaviors in humans, beyond its known role in childbirth and breastfeeding.
• 💰 Trust experiments involving monetary transfers showed that higher oxytocin levels increased trustworthiness and generosity in participants.
• 🔬 While oxytocin significantly influences moral behavior, other molecules and hormones, like testosterone, can inhibit its effects, leading to selfish or punitive behaviors.
• 😢 Empathy is a key driver of moral behavior, as higher oxytocin levels increase empathy, making people more likely to connect with and help others.
• 🎩 Manipulative individuals, such as conmen, exploit the oxytocin system to gain trust, but about 5% of people do not release oxytocin, resembling psychopathic tendencies.
• 👰 Weddings, social rituals, and events that foster emotional connection, like skydiving or even social media, cause spikes in oxytocin, reinforcing social bonds.
• 🤗 The speaker promotes 'eight hugs a day' as a prescription for happiness, as more oxytocin leads to better relationships and overall well-being.

Q & A

What makes humans unique according to the speaker?

Humans are unique because we are the only creatures with fully developed moral sentiments and a deep obsession with morality, which is crucial for us as social creatures.

What molecule does the speaker believe is responsible for morality, and why?

The speaker believes that oxytocin, a simple and ancient molecule, is responsible for morality. It is released in various social situations, such as trust-building, empathy, and generosity.

How did the speaker initially test the idea that oxytocin is the 'moral molecule'?

The speaker tested the idea by conducting an experiment where participants made financial decisions involving trust, and their oxytocin levels were measured. The results showed that higher oxytocin levels correlated with greater trustworthiness.

What were the results of the trust experiment involving money transfers between participants?

In the experiment, 90% of participants trusted others by sending money, and 95% of those who received money returned some of it. Higher levels of oxytocin were linked to greater trustworthiness.

How does oxytocin affect human behavior beyond trustworthiness?

Oxytocin increases generosity, enhances donations to charity, and strengthens feelings of empathy, all of which contribute to moral behavior and social bonding.

What is the role of empathy in morality according to the speaker?

Empathy, driven by oxytocin, is central to morality. It helps individuals connect with others' emotions, making them more likely to help and act morally.

How did the speaker demonstrate the role of oxytocin in a wedding setting?

At a wedding, the speaker measured oxytocin levels and found that the bride had the largest increase, followed by her mother and other family members. This suggests that oxytocin is released during important social rituals to strengthen connections.

What are some non-pharmacological ways to increase oxytocin levels?

Oxytocin levels can be increased through activities like massage, dancing, praying, and social bonding, such as hugging.

What are some factors that inhibit the release of oxytocin?

Oxytocin release can be inhibited by high stress, improper nurturing, and high testosterone levels, which can lead to more selfish behavior and a desire to punish others.

Why does the speaker recommend 'eight hugs a day'?

The speaker recommends eight hugs a day because hugging increases oxytocin levels, leading to better relationships, increased happiness, and overall improved well-being.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 The Unique Human Morality

The speaker reflects on the unique moral sentiments of humans, exploring why morality is so central to our social behavior. Personal influences, particularly from the speaker's mother, are cited as a source of their obsession with morality. They question whether morality stems from religious beliefs or if there's a biological basis, eventually setting out to discover if there's a 'moral molecule' that can explain our ethical behavior. After years of research, they believe they have found this molecule: oxytocin.

05:00

🔬 Testing Oxytocin's Role in Morality

The speaker explains their hypothesis that oxytocin, typically associated with childbirth and bonding, could be the 'moral molecule.' Initially dismissed as a naive idea, the speaker decided to test it experimentally. They describe the challenges of measuring oxytocin due to its transient nature and how they developed a method to capture it. Using trustworthiness as a proxy for morality, they set up economic experiments that demonstrated a correlation between oxytocin levels and trustworthiness.

10:02

💰 The Economics of Trust

Expanding on the trust experiments, the speaker details how people were asked to transfer money to strangers. Surprisingly, most participants sent money and received a portion back. The higher the amount received, the more oxytocin was produced, which increased the likelihood of returning money. This suggests a biological foundation for trustworthiness. The speaker further explains the importance of oxytocin in fostering trust and its potential for alleviating poverty by encouraging cooperation.

15:06

🧪 Proving the Effect of Oxytocin

To definitively prove that oxytocin causes trustworthiness, the speaker took the experiment further by administering oxytocin via a nasal inhaler. They found that participants on oxytocin were more likely to exhibit trusting behaviors, even doubling the number of people who gave away all their money. The speaker also describes additional studies showing oxytocin increased generosity and donations. They mention non-pharmacological ways to raise oxytocin, such as dancing and praying, which also lead to more generous behaviors.

❤️ Empathy and Oxytocin: The Moral Connection

The speaker connects oxytocin to empathy, explaining that it’s this chemical that drives humans to care for one another and act morally. By running an experiment where participants watched an emotional video, the speaker showed that higher oxytocin levels corresponded with greater feelings of empathy. They draw parallels to Adam Smith’s ideas from 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments,' which emphasized that humans are moral because we share emotions with others.

👮 The Dark Side: Immorality and Oxytocin

The speaker shifts focus to explore why some people act immorally, recounting a personal experience of being conned. They reveal that around 5% of people do not release oxytocin when others trust them, leading to selfish behavior. These individuals are described as having psychopathic traits. The speaker also discusses how factors like abuse, stress, and testosterone can inhibit oxytocin release, affecting moral behavior. Testosterone, in particular, increases selfishness but also promotes punishment for immoral acts.

💒 Weddings, Skydiving, and Social Media: Oxytocin in Everyday Life

The speaker discusses how oxytocin plays a role in everyday life, describing experiments where they measured oxytocin at a wedding and during a skydiving experience. They found that significant life events, like weddings, cause spikes in oxytocin, with the bride experiencing the largest increase. Additionally, social media can also stimulate oxytocin release, fostering connection between people. The speaker shares a case where interacting with a loved one on social media produced an exceptionally high spike in oxytocin.

🤗 Hugging and Happiness: Oxytocin for a Better World

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker highlights how easy it is to cause the brain to release oxytocin, even through simple actions like hugging. They share their affection for hugging, which earned them the nickname 'Dr. Love.' The speaker advises people to get eight hugs a day, claiming it leads to greater happiness and better relationships. They end on a humorous note, offering to increase oxytocin levels with a nasal spray if hugging isn’t an option.

Keywords

💡Oxytocin

Oxytocin is referred to as the 'moral molecule' in the video. It is a hormone that plays a key role in social bonding, trust, and empathy. The speaker explains how oxytocin influences human behavior, particularly in moral decision-making, trustworthiness, and generosity. For example, people with increased levels of oxytocin are more likely to return money in an economic trust experiment, illustrating its connection to prosocial behavior.

💡Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is a central virtue studied in the video. It is defined as the willingness to act in a reliable and honest manner in social interactions. The speaker examines trustworthiness using experiments where participants decide whether to send or return money to a stranger, finding that higher oxytocin levels correlate with increased trustworthiness. Understanding this virtue is connected to the broader goal of fostering social cooperation and economic prosperity.

💡Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. In the video, the speaker links empathy directly to oxytocin, explaining that when people's oxytocin levels rise, they feel more empathy for others. This emotional connection motivates people to act morally, such as sharing resources or helping strangers. The speaker uses the example of participants watching a touching video of a father and his son to demonstrate how empathy is measured and enhanced by oxytocin.

💡Testosterone

Testosterone is described as playing an opposing role to oxytocin in moral behavior. It is a hormone, more prevalent in men, that can lead to increased selfishness and a tendency to punish others for perceived immoral actions. The video illustrates how testosterone can inhibit the effects of oxytocin, showing that moral behavior is influenced by a balance of these two biological systems within humans.

💡Moral behavior

Moral behavior refers to actions that are considered right or ethical within a social context. The speaker explores whether there is a biological basis for morality, focusing on the role of oxytocin in promoting behaviors such as trust, generosity, and empathy. Through experiments involving money exchanges and social rituals like weddings, the speaker argues that oxytocin is a key driver of moral behavior, helping people feel connected and responsible for others.

💡Trust experiment

The trust experiment is a key study described in the video where participants are given money and must decide whether to send some of it to a stranger. The recipient can choose whether to return any money. The experiment measures trust and trustworthiness, with oxytocin levels being tested to see how they affect the participants' decisions. The experiment shows that higher oxytocin levels lead to more trust and reciprocity, providing evidence for oxytocin's role in social behavior.

💡Moral molecule

The 'moral molecule' is a term coined by the speaker to describe oxytocin. This hormone is linked to the biological basis of morality, influencing behaviors like trust, empathy, and generosity. By calling oxytocin the moral molecule, the speaker emphasizes its fundamental role in guiding ethical behavior and social cooperation, supported by scientific experiments and real-world examples.

💡Social bonding

Social bonding is the process by which individuals form emotional connections with one another. In the video, oxytocin is highlighted as the chemical that facilitates these bonds, particularly in contexts like family relationships, friendships, and even interactions with strangers. The speaker gives the example of a wedding, where oxytocin levels spike in the bride and close family members, showing how social rituals enhance emotional connections and community bonding.

💡Immorality

Immorality is the opposite of moral behavior, involving actions that are considered wrong or unethical. The video explores how a lack of oxytocin release can lead to immoral behavior, such as selfishness or manipulation. The speaker also discusses how certain individuals, like psychopaths or those under stress, do not experience oxytocin-triggered responses, which may explain their immoral or antisocial behaviors.

💡Con games

Con games, or confidence tricks, are used in the video to explain how people can manipulate others' trust. The speaker shares a personal story about being the victim of a 'pigeon drop' scam, where a con artist exploits the victim's oxytocin response to establish trust. This example highlights how oxytocin can be manipulated in social situations, leading individuals to make decisions based on misplaced trust.

Highlights

Humans are unique due to their fully developed moral sentiments, with a strong obsession with morality.

Oxytocin is identified as the 'moral molecule,' a chemical responsible for trust and morality in humans.

Oxytocin facilitates empathy, which is central to human morality and social bonding.

The speaker performed an experiment showing that increased oxytocin levels correspond with trustworthiness in economic exchanges.

Oxytocin not only encourages trust but also increases generosity by 80% in financial transfers and donations to charity by 50%.

Non-pharmacological activities like massage, dancing, and praying also increase oxytocin, enhancing generosity and connection.

A study on empathy found that watching emotional content, like a video of a father with a terminally ill son, raised oxytocin levels.

Five percent of the population does not release oxytocin on stimulus, potentially explaining traits of selfishness or psychopathy.

Stress and improper nurturing, like in cases of sexual abuse, can inhibit oxytocin release, impacting moral behavior.

High testosterone levels reduce oxytocin-driven behavior, making men more likely to act selfishly and punish others for immorality.

Oxytocin release was measured at a wedding, with the bride showing the highest levels, followed by her mother and the groom's father.

Skydiving caused a significant oxytocin spike, showing that trust and excitement can boost oxytocin even in risky situations.

Social media interactions, particularly on platforms like Facebook, can cause a notable increase in oxytocin levels.

Even isolated tribes in Papua New Guinea, living primitively, show oxytocin release, suggesting it is a universal social bonding mechanism.

The speaker concludes with a practical suggestion: give and receive eight hugs a day to increase oxytocin and improve happiness and relationships.

Transcripts

Is there anything unique about human beings?

There is.

We're the only creatures

with fully developed moral sentiments.

We're obsessed with morality as social creatures.

We need to know why people are doing what they're doing.

And I personally am obsessed with morality.

It was all due to this woman,

Sister Mary Marastela,

also known as my mom.

As an altar boy, I breathed in a lot of incense,

and I learned to say phrases in Latin,

but I also had time to think

about whether my mother's top-down morality

applied to everybody.

I saw that people who were religious and non-religious

were equally obsessed with morality.

I thought, maybe there's some earthly basis

for moral decisions.

But I wanted to go further

than to say our brains make us moral.

I want to know if there's a chemistry of morality.

I want to know

if there was a moral molecule.

After 10 years of experiments,

I found it.

Would you like to see it? I brought some with me.

This little syringe

contains the moral molecule.

(Laughter)

It's called oxytocin.

So oxytocin is a simple and ancient molecule

found only in mammals.

In rodents, it was known

to make mothers care for their offspring,

and in some creatures,

allowed for toleration of burrowmates.

But in humans, it was only known

to facilitate birth and breastfeeding in women,

and is released by both sexes during sex.

So I had this idea that oxytocin might be the moral molecule.

I did what most of us do -- I tried it on some colleagues.

One of them told me,

"Paul, that is the world's stupidist idea.

It is," he said, "only a female molecule.

It can't be that important."

But I countered, "Well men's brains make this too.

There must be a reason why."

But he was right, it was a stupid idea.

But it was testably stupid.

In other words, I thought I could design an experiment

to see if oxytocin made people moral.

Turns out it wasn't so easy.

First of all, oxytocin is a shy molecule.

Baseline levels are near zero,

without some stimulus to cause its release.

And when it's produced, it has a three-minute half-life,

and degrades rapidly at room temperature.

So this experiment would have to cause a surge of oxytocin,

have to grab it fast and keep it cold.

I think I can do that.

Now luckily, oxytocin is produced

both in the brain and in the blood,

so I could do this experiment without learning neurosurgery.

Then I had to measure morality.

So taking on Morality with a capital M is a huge project.

So I started smaller.

I studied one single virtue:

trustworthiness.

Why? I had shown in the early 2000s

that countries with a higher proportion of trustworthy people

are more prosperous.

So in these countries, more economic transactions occur

and more wealth is created,

alleviating poverty.

So poor countries are by and large low trust countries.

So if I understood the chemistry of trustworthiness,

I might help alleviate poverty.

But I'm also a skeptic.

I don't want to just ask people, "Are you trustworthy?"

So instead I use

the Jerry Maguire approach to research.

If you're so virtuous,

show me the money.

So what we do in my lab

is we tempt people with virtue and vice by using money.

Let me show you how we do that.

So we recruit some people for an experiment.

They all get $10 if they agree to show up.

We give them lots of instruction, and we never ever deceive them.

Then we match them in pairs by computer.

And in that pair, one person gets a message saying,

"Do you want to give up some of your $10

you earned for being here

and ship it to someone else in the lab?"

The trick is you can't see them,

you can't talk to them.

You only do it one time.

Now whatever you give up

gets tripled in the other person's account.

You're going to make them a lot wealthier.

And they get a message by computer saying

person one sent you this amount of money.

Do you want to keep it all,

or do you want to send some amount back?

So think about this experiment for minute.

You're going to sit on these hard chairs for an hour and a half.

Some mad scientist is going to jab your arm with a needle

and take four tubes of blood.

And now you want me to give up this money and ship it to a stranger?

So this was the birth of vampire economics.

Make a decision and give me some blood.

So in fact, experimental economists

had run this test around the world,

and for much higher stakes,

and the consensus view

was that the measure from the first person to the second was a measure of trust,

and the transfer from the second person back to the first

measured trustworthiness.

But in fact, economists were flummoxed

on why the second person would ever return any money.

They assumed money is good,

why not keep it all?

That's not what we found.

We found 90 percent of the first decision-makers sent money,

and of those who received money,

95 percent returned some of it.

But why?

Well by measuring oxytocin

we found that the more money the second person received,

the more their brain produced oxytocin,

and the more oxytocin on board,

the more money they returned.

So we have a biology of trustworthiness.

But wait. What's wrong with this experiment?

Two things.

One is that nothing in the body happens in isolation.

So we measured nine other molecules that interact with oxytocin,

but they didn't have any effect.

But the second is

that I still only had this indirect relationship

between oxytocin and trustworthiness.

I didn't know for sure

oxytocin caused trustworthiness.

So to make the experiment,

I knew I'd have to go into the brain

and manipulate oxytocin directly.

I used everything short of a drill

to get oxytocin into my own brain.

And I found I could do it

with a nasal inhaler.

So along with colleagues in Zurich,

we put 200 men on oxytocin or placebo,

had that same trust test with money,

and we found that those on oxytocin not only showed more trust,

we can more than double the number of people

who sent all their money to a stranger --

all without altering mood or cognition.

So oxytocin is the trust molecule,

but is it the moral molecule?

Using the oxytocin inhaler,

we ran more studies.

We showed that oxytocin infusion

increases generosity

in unilateral monetary transfers

by 80 percent.

We showed it increases donations to charity

by 50 percent.

We've also investigated

non-pharmacologic ways to raise oxytocin.

These include massage,

dancing and praying.

Yes, my mom was happy about that last one.

And whenever we raise oxytocin,

people willingly open up their wallets

and share money with strangers.

But why do they do this?

What does it feel like

when your brain is flooded with oxytocin?

To investigate this question, we ran an experiment

where we had people watch a video

of a father and his four year-old son,

and his son has terminal brain cancer.

After they watched the video, we had them rate their feelings

and took blood before and after to measure oxytocin.

The change in oxytocin

predicted their feelings of empathy.

So it's empathy

that makes us connect to other people.

It's empathy that makes us help other people.

It's empathy that makes us moral.

Now this idea is not new.

A then unknown philosopher named Adam Smith

wrote a book in 1759

called "The Theory of Moral Sentiments."

In this book, Smith argued

that we are moral creatures, not because of a top-down reason,

but for a bottom-up reason.

He said we're social creatures,

so we share the emotions of others.

So if I do something that hurts you, I feel that pain.

So I tend to avoid that.

If I do something that makes you happy, I get to share your joy.

So I tend to do those things.

Now this is the same Adam Smith who, 17 years later,

would write a little book called "The Wealth of Nations" --

the founding document of economics.

But he was, in fact, a moral philosopher,

and he was right on why we're moral.

I just found the molecule behind it.

But knowing that molecule is valuable,

because it tells us how to turn up this behavior

and what turns it off.

In particular, it tells us

why we see immorality.

So to investigate immorality,

let me bring you back now to 1980.

I'm working at a gas station

on the outskirts of Santa Barbara, California.

You sit in a gas station all day,

you see lots of morality and immorality, let me tell you.

So one Sunday afternoon, a man walks into my cashier's booth

with this beautiful jewelry box.

Opens it up and there's a pearl necklace inside.

And he said, "Hey, I was in the men's room.

I just found this. What do you think we should do with it?"

"I don't know, put it in the lost and found."

"Well this is very valuable.

We have to find the owner for this." I said, "Yea."

So we're trying to decide what to do with this,

and the phone rings.

And a man says very excitedly,

"I was in your gas station a while ago,

and I bought this jewelry for my wife, and I can't find it."

I said, "Pearl necklace?" "Yeah."

"Hey, a guy just found it."

"Oh, you're saving my life. Here's my phone number.

Tell that guy to wait half an hour.

I'll be there and I'll give him a $200 reward."

Great, so I tell the guy, "Look, relax.

Get yourself a fat reward. Life's good."

He said, "I can't do it.

I have this job interview in Galena in 15 minutes,

and I need this job, I've got to go."

Again he asked me, "What do you think we should do?"

I'm in high school. I have no idea.

So I said, "I'll hold it for you."

He said, "You know, you've been so nice, let's split the reward."

I'll give you the jewelry, you give me a hundred dollars,

and when the guy comes ... "

You see it. I was conned.

So this is a classic con called the pigeon drop,

and I was the pigeon.

So the way many cons work

is not that the conman gets the victim to trust him,

it's that he shows he trusts the victim.

Now we know what happens.

The victim's brain releases oxytocin,

and you're opening up your wallet or purse, giving away the money.

So who are these people

who manipulate our oxytocin systems?

We found, testing thousands of individuals,

that five percent of the population

don't release oxytocin on stimulus.

So if you trust them, their brains don't release oxytocin.

If there's money on the table, they keep it all.

So there's a technical word for these people in my lab.

We call them bastards.

(Laughter)

These are not people you want to have a beer with.

They have many of the attributes of psychopaths.

Now there are other ways the system can be inhibited.

One is through improper nurturing.

So we've studied sexually abused women,

and about half those don't release oxytocin on stimulus.

You need enough nurturing

for this system to develop properly.

Also, high stress inhibits oxytocin.

So we all know this, when we're really stressed out,

we're not acting our best.

There's another way oxytocin is inhibited, which is interesting --

through the action of testosterone.

So we, in experiments, have administered testosterone to men.

And instead of sharing money,

they become selfish.

But interestingly,

high testosterone males are also more likely

to use their own money to punish others for being selfish.

(Laughter)

Now think about this. It means, within our own biology,

we have the yin and yang of morality.

We have oxytocin that connects us to others,

makes us feel what they feel.

And we have testosterone.

And men have 10 times the testosterone as women,

so men do this more than women --

we have testosterone that makes us want to punish

people who behave immorally.

We don't need God or government telling us what to do.

It's all inside of us.

So you may be wondering:

these are beautiful laboratory experiments,

do they really apply to real life?

Yeah, I've been worrying about that too.

So I've gone out of the lab

to see if this really holds in our daily lives.

So last summer, I attended a wedding in Southern England.

200 people in this beautiful Victorian mansion.

I didn't know a single person.

And I drove up in my rented Vauxhall.

And I took out a centrifuge and dry ice

and needles and tubes.

And I took blood from the bride and the groom

and the wedding party and the family and the friends

before and immediately after the vows.

(Laughter)

And guess what?

Weddings cause a release of oxytocin,

but they do so in a very particular way.

Who is the center of the wedding solar system?

The bride.

She had the biggest increase in oxytocin.

Who loves the wedding almost as much as the bride?

Her mother, that's right.

Her mother was number two.

Then the groom's father, then the groom,

then the family, then the friends --

arrayed around the bride

like planets around the Sun.

So I think it tells us that we've designed this ritual

to connect us to this new couple,

connect us emotionally.

Why? Because we need them to be successful at reproducing

to perpetuate the species.

I also worried that my trust experiments with small amounts of money

didn't really capture how often we actually trust our lives to strangers.

So even though I have a fear of heights,

I recently strapped myself to another human being

and stepped out of an airplane at 12,000 ft.

I took my blood before and after,

and I had a huge spike of oxytocin.

And there are so many ways we can connect to people.

For example, through social media.

Many people are Tweeting right now.

So we investigated the role of social media

and found the using social media

produced a solid double-digit increase in oxytocin.

So I ran this experiment recently for the Korean Broadcasting System.

And they had the reporters and their producers participate.

And one of these guys, he must have been 22,

he had 150 percent spike in oxytocin.

I mean, astounding; no one has this.

So he was using social media in private.

When I wrote my report to the Koreans,

I said, "Look, I don't know what this guy was doing,"

but my guess was interacting with his mother or his girlfriend.

They checked.

He was interacting on his girlfriend's Facebook page.

There you go. That's connection.

So there's tons of ways that we can connect to other people,

and it seems to be universal.

Two weeks ago,

I just got back from Papua New Guinea

where I went up to the highlands --

very isolated tribes of subsistence farmers

living as they have lived for millenia.

There are 800 different languages in the highlands.

These are the most primitive people in the world.

And they indeed also release oxytocin.

So oxytocin connects us to other people.

Oxytocin makes us feel what other people feel.

And it's so easy to cause people's brains

to release oxytocin.

I know how to do it,

and my favorite way to do it is, in fact, the easiest.

Let me show it to you.

Come here. Give me a hug.

(Laughter)

There you go.

(Applause)

So my penchant for hugging other people

has earned me the nickname Dr. Love.

I'm happy to share a little more love in the world,

it's great,

but here's your prescription from Dr. Love:

eight hugs a day.

We have found that people who release more oxytocin

are happier.

And they're happier

because they have better relationships of all types.

Dr. Love says eight hugs a day.

Eight hugs a day -- you'll be happier

and the world will be a better place.

Of course, if you don't like to touch people, I can always shove this up your nose.

(Laughter)

Thank you.

(Applause)