Oxytocin enhances the experience of attachment security

PSYCHONEUROENDOCRINOLOGY

卷:34

Article

Buchheim, Anna¹  Heinrichs, Markus²  George, Carol³  Pokorny, Dan⁴  Koops, Eva⁵  Henningsen, Peter⁵  O'Connor, Mary-Frances⁶  Guendel, Harald⁷ 

[1] Univ Innsbruck, Dept Psychol, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria

[2] Univ Zurich, Dept Psychol, CH-8006 Zurich, Switzerland

[3] Mills Coll, Dept Psychol, Oakland, CA 94613 USA

[4] Univ Ulm, Dept Psychosomat Med & Psychotherapy, D-89069 Ulm, Germany

[5] Tech Univ Munich, Dept Psychosomat & Psychotherapy, D-8000 Munich, Germany

[6] Univ Calif Los Angeles, Cousins Ctr Psychoneuroimmunol, Los Angeles, CA USA

[7] Hannover Med Sch, Dept Psychosomat & Psychotherapy, Hannover, Germany

关键词: Human attachment;    Oxytocin;    Intranasal;    Attachment security;    Attachment insecurity;    Emotion-regulation;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.04.002

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Repeated interactions between infant and caregiver result in either secure or insecure relationship attachment patterns, and insecure attachment may affect individual emotion-regulation and health. Given that oxytocin enhances social approach behavior in animals and humans, we hypothesized that oxytocin might also promote the subjective experience of attachment security in humans. Within a 3-week interval, 26 healthy mate students classified with an insecure attachment pattern were invited twice to an experimental session. At the beginning of each experiment, a single dose of oxytocin or placebo was administered intranasally, using a double-blind, placebo-controlled within-subject design. In both conditions, subjects completed an attachment task based on the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP). Thirty-two AAP picture system presentations depicted attachment-related events (e.g. illness, solitude, separation, and loss), and were each accompanied by four prototypical phrases representing one secure and three insecure attachment categories. In the oxytocin condition, a significant proportion of these insecure subjects (N = 18; 69%) increased in their rankings of the AAP prototypical secure attachment phrases and decreased in overall ranking of the insecure attachment phrases. In particular, there was a significant decrease in the number of subjects ranking the pictures with insecure-preoccupied phrases from the placebo to the oxytocin condition. We find that a single dose of intranasally administered oxytocin is sufficient to induce a significant increase in the experience of attachment security in insecurely attached adults. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free