RSSThe Car Salesman’s New Best Friend
This story has some scary implications:
Swiss scientists have realised the snake oil salesman’s dream: a potion that increases trust. One whiff of a brain-penetrating hormone called oxytocin, and you would trust him with your wallet, if not your life.
Oxytocin plays a role in the bonding between mother and suckling infant; it helps you feel that you “know” someone you have met before, and it plays a powerful role in romantic love and desire.
…
Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich and colleagues tested 194 healthy male students in a series of sophisticated games of risk and trust: the players were given notional currency and could choose to place all of it, some of it or nothing in the hands of trustees who would then decide how much to hand back after the stake had been tripled.
Some players were given a whiff of oxytocin, some inhaled a vial of air. None of the players knew what they were sniffing and none knew whether the trustees were trustworthy or not: they had to make a decision. Those who sniffed oxytocin showed a greater propensity to trust someone than those who simply inhaled air.
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4 Responses to “The Car Salesman’s New Best Friend”
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Ah Oxytocin! The Soma of Brave New World enters our century. How long before we see it in perfume, oils, drugs and other applications? It is a classic case of not “if”, but when.
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That Explains It All
First we have a new way to get people to trust you, maybe even fall in love with you. Then when they fall in love with you, there brain show [...]
Maybe, Kim Jong Il will be the spokesman for this… It certainly will become the drug of choice for dictators.
Do you suppose Putin slipped some to Bush when he said… “I looked into his eyes and I saw into his soul…”?
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