New study on the hormone of love, the sexual attractiveness of strangers: why you? Because the? Because she?

In case you haven’t heard yet, a new study on oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone” that’s said to increase that warm, fuzzy feeling of togetherness, has come to light.

The study published in the journal “Hormones and Behavior” (March 2009) was conducted on 96 men and women in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. After participants smelled either oxytocin or a placebo, they were asked to rate images of 48 men and women for attractiveness and 30 for trustworthiness. The participants were also tested for mood.

The study found that “regardless of gender or mood, volunteers given oxytocin rated male and female strangers as more attractive and confident.”

Angeliki Theodoridou, a psychologist at the University of Bristol, UK, who led the study says “we are more likely to see people we don’t know in a more positive light” when oxytocin is circulating in our blood.

The study did not examine how oxytocin affects social judgments, but Theodoridou believes the hormone dampens brain activity in a region involved in processing fearful emotions, called the amygdala.

Jennifer Bartz, a psychologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, says Theodoridou’s study suggests oxytocin acts similarly in men and women when rating strangers, but sex differences could emerge in real-world situations. “. He also said that more research is needed to see if this is the case.

I’ll let you, the reader, decide for yourself if this is the Real McCoy or not; if this warm fuzzy feeling is “love” or sexual attraction; what if “more attractive and confident” when applied to a complete stranger adds up to romantic love or true love?

But as you contemplate these mysteries that have plagued even the otherwise intelligent, successful, advanced “liberated” and “enlightened” men and women of our time, you may also want to know that companies are already offering “love sprays.” “of oxytocin for the body that they claim will calm the amygdala and cause you (and the person smelling it) to experience that “falling in love” feeling.

Can a love spray help your love life? Angeliki Theodoridou does not endorse oxytocin “love sprays.”

Fortunately for us, we have a completely natural means of producing oxytocin in the brain and in our blood. Caring for another, caring for a pet, selfless giving, engaging in affectionate petting, massage, meditation, prayer, worship, and exercise all produce more oxytocin receptors, making these receptors more sensitive to the effects of oxytocin.

In other words, we naturally produce oxytocin when we love and are loved. The more love we give and receive, the more “in love” we feel. And if this latest study is real, then the more “in love” we feel, the more our “stranger sex appeal”; the more our “sex appeal from a stranger” the more attractive and confident we are to another stranger; the more attractive and trustworthy another stranger finds us, the more “in love” they feel.

Oxytocin is not just for single men and women looking for the perfect lady or man. From what I’ve read about oxytocin in other studies, it appears that women who report having satisfying friendships and a committed sexual relationship exhibit large jumps in blood oxytocin concentrations (study led by psychologist Rebecca A. Turner of the School of Psychology California Professional in Alameda).

 

According to this study, women who describe having lifelong disorders with close relationships and who do not have a current sexual partner show, during positive mood states, oxytocin concentrations not higher than those measured at rest.

Stress, anxiety, fear, anger, resentment, discouragement, despair, depression, emotional overreaction, and negativity weaken our ability to produce oxytocin.