Hormones and Behaviour Flashcards
What are the two subheadings under hormones, pheromones and behaviour?
Hormones and behaviour, pheromones and behaviour
What are the two studies that can be used to illustrates hormones and behaviour?
De Dreu and Kosfeld
What hormones is illustrated in this sub topic?
Oxytocin
Kosfeld(2005)
To see if oxytocin may promote prosocial behaviours in humans. The ppts were assigned the roles of being a ‘trustee’ or a ‘investor’ and given 12 monetary units(MU). They then had to administer a nasal spray with half containing oxytocin and half containing saline. The ‘investor’ could invest either 0, 4, 8 or 12 MU into the ‘trustee’ and the experimenter tripled it and added it to the 12 MUs. The trustee could than decide how many that they wanted to back transfer to the investor. Each of the ppts made 4 decisions in each role each time with a different partner. Results showed that those who had oxytocin were twice as likely to commit all their MUs than the placebo. Shows that oxytocin promoted trust of the investors to the trustees as the investors had to make the first approach.
What are pheromones?
Substances that are secreted to the outside by an individual and recieved by a second individual of the same species in which they release a specific response
What are the criteria for pheromones?
They must be something that can be isolated, they must be coherant and singular, must be a characteristic of a group and not an individual and must be present in naturally occuring quantities sufficient to cause an effect
What are the studies that are used to illustrate pheromones?
Buenandt, Kirk-Smith and Booth, Doucet, ( Wedekind)
Butenandt(1959)
Wanted to identify the chemical response for sexual attraction in moths. Had identified a measurable behaviour which was wing fluttering in male moths and tried different solutions containing different chemicals released by female moths to see which induced the measurable behaviour. They were able to isolate bombykol which was confirmed when chemical structure was worked out and an artifical version was made
Kirk-Smith and Booth
Used boarmate spray on chairs in a dentist waiting room. Boarmate contains adrostenone which is a boar pheromone that is found in mens sweat) and recorded who sat where relative to where the sprayed seat was. Women tended to sit next to the sprayed seat more than on days it was not sprayed and men were also significantly less likely to sit next to the sprayed seat. The sprayed seat had an effect however it was considered to be due to the learned associations with the smell rather than a biological response
Why is it possible for pheromones to exist?
Other mammals use pheromones and humans are mammals, humans have a strong sense of smell, phoetuses have vomeronasal organ known to detect pheromones in other species
HOWEVER –
there is no conclusive evidence that there is even one chemical that acts as a pheromones, studies haven’t been able to isolate chemicals meeting the qualities of pheromones, studies have limitations on validity/ sample size
Doucet et al (2009)
Investigated the role of areolar secretions in the behaviour of new born babies. Presented 8 different substances under the noses of new born infants, these were vanila, cows milk, sebum, distilled water., human milk from a non-famililar woman, non-familiar formula, the milk they were feeding from and secretions from the areolar glands of a woman that is not their mother. The babies responses were recorded through behaviours like lip pursing, heart rate and tongue protrusion. The babies had responded quicker and stronger to areolar gland secretions (AG odour) and continued responses for longer other than for sebum and cows milk. New born babies can detect AG odour and responded specifically to the AG odour rather than its components ( sebum+ milk) OR a novel odour (vanilla)
