Abstract
A relationship between the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and behavioral and attitudinal trust has been suggested, but the nature of this relationship has not yet been established. We obtained behavioral trust data from 470 Japanese participants (242 women) aged 20–59 years, together with their levels of general trust and personality traits (NEO-FFI). Saliva buccal swabs were collected from 411 of these 470 participants and used for genotyping of OXTR rs53576. Our participants were found to have more AA alleles (40%) than GG alleles (12%). The GG men were more trusting and also rated higher on attitudinal trust than AA men, and this difference did not diminish when personality traits were controlled for. However, this pattern was not observed among women. In addition, controlling for attitudinal trust reduced the difference in behavioral trust among men to a non-significant level, but the difference in attitudinal trust remained significant when behavioral trust was controlled. These results indicate that the OXTR genotype affects attitudinal trust as part of an individual’s relatively stable disposition, and further affects behavioral trust through changes in attitudinal trust.
Highlights
Trust plays an integral role in effective interpersonal, social, economic, legal, and political functioning [1,2,3,4,5]
These results indicate that the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) genotype affects attitudinal trust as part of an individual’s relatively stable disposition, and further affects behavioral trust through changes in attitudinal trust
Findings involving some of the variables collected in the seven waves, including the trust game and the measures of general attitudinal trust reported in this paper, have been reported elsewhere [31], but this is the first report of the relationship between OXTR and behavioral and attitudinal trust
Summary
Trust plays an integral role in effective interpersonal, social, economic, legal, and political functioning [1,2,3,4,5]. Most trust-related research has been conducted by social scientists [1,2,3,4,5] who are predominantly concerned with social and psychological antecedents and consequences of trust, the past decade has witnessed a growing interest in the biological foundations of trust. One focus of this newly developing research is the role that oxytocin plays in modulating trust-related behavior [6,7,8,9,10]. PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0137089 October 7, 2015
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