Oxytocin Helps Us Love, And Lie

You've heard the expression, every cloud has a silver lining?  Well, how about every silver lining has a cloud?

 A new study has found that the very same hormone that helps us love also helps us lie.

 Say what?  Oxytocin - the "love" hormone produced by the body to encourage bonding - may also help us to lie -- but here's the silver lining.  To the benefit of our group.

 Oxytocin -- which has sometimes been confused (at least by me) for oxycodone, a way to curb pain (and get high) --  has been demonstrated in research as "promoting bonding in couples and between mothers and babies, and is also thought to drive people's impulse to be sociable," according to medicalnewtoday.com.
The more oxytocin a person has, the more empathy and trust they will have, as well as lower social anxiety and fear response. Oxytocin can also stimulate aggression, if it is required for reasons of defense, medicalnewstoday reports.
Oxytocin can also keep men monogamous, according to Time, by making romantic partners look more attractive to each other than strangers, at least to men.
And some even say it can be a healing hormone, as well as a diet aid, and, in the end, what makes us human.  
But back to the lies. Scientists did an experiment where they divided participants into two teams and had each flip coins and guess which side the coins would fall on.  Those who were given oxytocin lied.  Twice as much.  But it was probably to help their team.  
"Our results suggest people are willing to bend ethical rules to help the people close to us, like our team or family," medicalnewstoday quotes one of the study authors. 



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