Do your employees not work well with others? Are they not into teamwork? Researchers at CalTech have found a hormone that promotes cooperation and trust in others. So could there be a “cure” for this condition in the future?
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Findings of a study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could prove useful for helping groups cooperate beneficially, according to a CalTech press release.
In the new study, Professor Colin Camerer and his team tested the hypothesis that the hormone arginine vasopressin (AVP) might play a role in social bonding in people and how it could help our species’ cooperative tendencies.
“One of the reasons humans rule the world rather than apes is that we do things that require a great deal of trust. We cooperate in large-scale groups,” Camerer says. “Where does that come from? Is it something like pair bonding but just scaled up? And if it is, what role does AVP play?”
To investigate these questions, Camerer and his colleagues administered a nasal spray containing AVP or a hormone-free nasal spray (a placebo) to 59 male volunteers 19 to 32 years old. Pairs of subjects then used computers to play a so-called assurance game in which they had to choose whether or not to cooperate with another player; “assurance” comes from the fact that subjects will take a risky action if they are sufficiently assured that others will, too.
When they cooperated, both players received more points than they would have if they did not mutually cooperate. If one player chose not to cooperate but his partner made the opposite decision, the noncooperative player received an intermediate payoff whereas the cooperative player received nothing.
“The game is designed to mimic situations in which people are willing to help, but only if everyone else helps too,” Camerer says. “Think of pitching in on a team project, or of a group of soldiers rushing the enemy. If a critical mass cooperates, then everyone else should go along. Thus it is in your best interest to help only if enough others do.”
The experiment showed that players who received AVP before the game were significantly more likely to cooperate than those who received the placebo. “By targeting a specific hormonal system in the human brain, we could manipulate people’s willingness to cooperate and help them do better,” says Gideon Nave, coauthor on the study.
The researchers conducted the same experiment, but this time had subjects play the game while their brains were being imaged using a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The scans indicated that after AVP administration, a part of the brain known as the ventral pallidum—a region that is known to have an abundance of AVP receptors—showed a change in activity when the players decided to cooperate.
Could the discovery that AVP increases the likelihood of cooperation have practical applications and be used, for example, to engender trust and foster cooperation in groups? “Perhaps,” says the press release. So the miracle cure for uncooperative employees may not be right on the horizon.