When we need To Care for Power: Disentangling two (endocrine) systems underlying social cognition and behavior

Abstract

Research on human behavior has frequently shown that it varies as a function of the motivational background of the situation. In other words, an individual might act differently, depending on whether its focus is currently, for example, on establishing a relationship, winning a competition, or coping with a threat. Understanding - and potentially even influencing - drivers of human behavior is vitally important in social context, where it varies extraordinarily in its intention and the effect: ranging from supportive and helpful to detrimental or even fatal. A frequent assumption is that helpful, or pro-social behaviors are motivated by Care. This motivation is suggested to have evolved in the context of offspring nurturance and interactions with close kin and to rely on complex social cognition, as well as related neocortical brain areas and hormones such as oxytocin. By comparison, antisocial actions are often associated with a drive for superiority and dominance, also termed as Power motivation. Power, and the related hormone testosterone, are frequently associated with risk taking and decreased sensitivity for other’s emotions. Hence, they might lay the groundwork for tolerating other’s harm, or even aiming to cause it for personal gain. In this thesis, I systematically probed the role of Power and Care in pro-and antisocial behaviors and sentiments. To this end, I tested how these drivers - on the levels of hormones, environmental cues and epigenetics - impact social cognition and decisions including responses to children and members of in- and outgroups.After all, interactions with offspring and close kin might more closely resemble the context which shaped Care’s postulated role in human evolution. Moreover, given that Power/testosterone and Care/oxytocin might have different adaptive value depending on an individual’s social environment, in my last study I assessed how oxytocin and testosterone shape social responses in interaction with adverse early life experiences.