'Love hormone' oxytocin boosts men's ability to identify their rivals while helping women better understand bonds of friendship, a new study has found.
In men the hormone improves the ability to identify competitive relationships whereas in women it facilitates the ability to identify kinship, researchers said
"These findings are in agreement with previous studies on the social differences between the sexes: women tend to be more communal and familial in their behaviour, whereas men are more inclined to be competitive and striving to improve their social status", said Professor Simone Shamay-Tsoory from the the University of Haifa, who led the research.
Oxytocin is released in our bodies in various social situations, and it is better known as "The Love Hormone" since our bodies release it at high concentrations during positive social interactions such as falling in love, experiencing an orgasm or giving birth and breastfeeding.
In the current study, researchers tried to find out what effect Oxytocin would have on women's and men's accurate perception of social interactions.
As many as 62 men and women aged 20-37 years participated in the current research. Half of the participants received an intranasal dose of Oxytocin while the other half received a placebo. After a week, the groups switched with participants undergoing the same procedure with the other substance.
Following treatment, video clips showing various social interactions were screened. Participants were asked to analyse the relationships presented in the clips by answering questions that focused mainly on identifying relationships of kinship, intimacy and competition.
The results showed that Oxytocin improved the ability of all the participants to better interpret social interactions in general.
Researchers discovered that following treatment with Oxytocin, men's ability to correctly interpret competitive relationships improved, whereas in women it was the ability to correctly identify kinship that improved.
They found that "The Love Hormone" doesn't help women or men to better identify intimate situations.
Since the ability to correctly identify intimate situations was substantially low among all participants in the study, there is evidence to say that correctly identifying an intimate relationship between two people is intricate and complicated, researchers said.
