Background
Humans have a strong social tendency to compare themselves with others. We tend to
feel envious when we receive less valuable rewards and may rejoice when our payoffs
are more advantageous. Envy and schadenfreude (gloating over the other's misfortune)
are social emotions widely agreed to be a symptom of the human social tendency to
compare one's payoffs with those of others. Given the important social components
of envy and gloating, we speculated that oxytocin may have a modulating effect on
the intensity of these emotions.
Methods
Fifty-six participants participated in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject
study. Following the administration of oxytocin or a placebo, participants played
a game of chance with another (fake) participant who either won more money (envy manipulation),
lost more money (schadenfreude manipulation), or won/lost equal amounts of money.
Results
In comparison with the placebo, oxytocin increased the envy ratings during unequal
monetary gain conditions involving relative loss (when the participant gained less
money than another player). Oxytocin also increased the ratings of gloating during
relative gain conditions (when the participant gained more money than the other player).
By contrast, oxytocin had no effect on the emotional ratings following equal monetary
gains nor did it affect general mood ratings.
Conclusions
These results suggest that the oxytocinergic system is involved in modulating envy
and gloating. Thus, contrary to the prevailing belief that this system is involved
solely in positive prosocial behaviors, it probably plays a key role in a wider range
of social emotion-related behaviors.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 30, 2009
Accepted:
June 11,
2009
Received in revised form:
June 11,
2009
Received:
December 11,
2008
Footnotes
Authors MF and JD contributed equally to this article.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
