Abstract
In an influential paper, Kosfeld et al. (2005) showed that intranasal administration of oxytocin (OT) increases the transfers made by investors in the trust game-suggesting that OT increases trust in strangers. Subsequent studies investigating the role of OT in the trust game found inconclusive effects on the trusting behaviour of investors but these studies deviated from the Kosfeld et al. study in an important way-they did not implement minimal social contact (MSC) between the investors and the trustees in the trust game. Here, we performed a large double-blind and placebo-controlled replication study of the effects of OT on trusting behaviour that yields a power of more than 95% and implements an MSC condition as well as a no-social-contact (NoC) condition. We find no effect of OT on trusting behaviour in the MSC condition. Exploratory post hoc analyses suggest that OT may increase trust in individuals with a low disposition to trust in the NoC condition, but this finding requires confirmation in future research. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 19 October 2018. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.11980368.
Highlights
Kosfeld et al (2005) showed that intranasal administration of Oxytocin (OT) increases the transfers made by investors in the trust game – suggesting that
While subsequent studies investigating the role of OT in the trust game found inconclusive effects on the trusting behavior of investors, they deviated from the Kosfeld et al study in an important way as they did not implement a minimal social contact between the investors and the trustees in the trust game
The sample generates a power of more than 95% to detect a true effect of OT on trusting behavior in the trust game
Summary
Comparing a placebo and an OT group in a trust experiment with minimal social contact. To bolster their results, Kosfeld et al.[8] assessed the global difference between all four. Given our 2x2 experimental design, the test that would corresponds to (i) compares trust in the minimal social contact condition between the OT and the Placebo group. We base our a priori power analysis on the effect size d = 0.514, reported in test (i) of Kosfeld et al.[8] and the requirement of a one‐tailed test, which is justified when testing a directional[38] hypothesis. Test we must recruit 166 observation units to detect a significant difference of OT in the minimal contact condition of the proposed experiment (i.e., replicating effect (i), see
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