Abstract
Evidence indicates that hormones modulate the intensity of maternal care. Oxytocin is known for its positive influence on maternal behavior and its important role for childbirth. In contrast, testosterone promotes egocentric choices and reduces empathy. Further, testosterone decreases during parenthood which could be an adaptation to increased parental investment. The present study investigated the interaction between testosterone and oxytocin in attentional control and their influence on attention to baby schema in women. Higher endogenous testosterone was expected to decrease selective attention to child portraits in a face-in-the-crowd-paradigm, while oxytocin was expected to counteract this effect. As predicted, women with higher salivary testosterone were slower in orienting attention to infant targets in the context of adult distractors. Interestingly, reaction times to infant and adult stimuli decreased after oxytocin administration, but only in women with high endogenous testosterone. These results suggest that oxytocin may counteract the adverse effects of testosterone on a central aspect of social behavior and maternal caretaking.
Highlights
Strong mother-infant interactions are vital for reproductive success [1]
To control for so called ‘belief effects’ the participants were pseudo-instructed about the content of the nasal spray, whereby half of the participants were instructed accurately and half of the participants were instructed incorrectly. This was done in light of previous research suggesting that the “folk wisdom” about the effects of the androgen T is partly responsible for behavior of the participant [52]
In the present study, the pseudo-instruction had no effect on the distraction by baby schema (e.g. Delta adult target— baby target) (F1,37 = 0.716, p = 0.403), only on the reaction times in general, which is important for the following analysis
Summary
Strong mother-infant interactions are vital for reproductive success [1]. They are modulated by different hormones, for instance the neuropeptide oxytocin, which is known for influencing maternal behavior [2,3]. It plays a major role in the induction of labor and lactation (here in rats) [4], and modulates behavior associated with caretaking (e.g., nestbuilding and nursing in mice) [5] and bonding [6].
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