The Effects of Oxytocin Manipulation on Empathy - Annotated Bibliography Example

The Effects of Oxytocin Manipulation on Empathy and Apology within the Dark Triad of Personality Somayya Saleemi # 210214617 York University January 6, 2015 Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 A. Forgiveness and Apology 3 B. The Dark Triad 4 1. What is the Dark Triad (Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy)? 4 2. Measuring Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy 5 3. The Dark Triad Traits and Apology 6 II. Empathy 7 A. What is Empathy? 7 1. Cognitive Development of Empathy by Age 7 B. Measuring Empathy 8 C. Empathy and The Dark Triad 8 D. Empathy and Apology 10 III. Oxytocin (OXT) 10 A. What is OXT and its Biological Basis? 10 B. History and Uses 11 C. Administration Methods and Ethics 12 D. Alternative Methods of Manipulation and Their Strength (Cuddling, Laughter, etc.) 13 E. OXT, Empathy, and Pro-Social Behavior 14 F. OXT and Apology 15 IV. Conclusion 16 A. What is still unclear and what are the gaps the current OXT social-personality research? 16 B. Implications for Apologetic Behavior and Future Direction of OXT Research 16 V. References 18 I. Introduction A. Forgiveness and Apology Ward Struthers, C., Eaton, J., Santelli, A.G., Uchiyama, M., & Shirvani, N. (2008). The effects of attributions of intent and apology on forgiveness: When saying sorry may not help the story. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(4), 983-992. Transgressions can harm interpersonal relationships, although the damages that they may cause are not always permanent. Ward Struthers et al. (2008) defined forgiveness as a process that can repair damaged relationships which come from interpersonal conflicts. They also determined that an apology can restore broken relationships. They defined an apology as having several of the following components, if not all: it expresses that the offender admits that he is involved in the transgression; it shows remorse, responsibility, and acknowledgment of the impacts of the transgression; it exhibits that the offender feels sorry for his transgressions; it asserts that the offender knows that he caused the transgression, not the victim; and it underlines that the offender has human worth because he sees the victim as worthy of an apology (Struthers et al., 2008, p. 984). A sincere apology is essentially based on feeling empathy toward victims. Eaton, J., Ward Struthers, C., & Santelli, A.G. (2006). Dispositional and state forgiveness: The role of self-esteem, need for structure, and narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 41(2), 371-380. Eaton, Ward Struthers, and Santelli (2006) defined forgiveness as a process that has both intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions (p. 371). They believe that self-esteem can protect people from the negative effects of interpersonal transgressions, wherein people with high self-esteem may be more forgiving than those with low self-esteem (Eaton et al., 2006, p. 371). Eaton et al. (2006) wanted to know if self-esteem influenced the intrapersonal elements of forgiveness, specifically dispositional forgiveness and state forgiveness. Dispositional forgiveness refers to the tendency to forgive others, while state forgiveness pertains to the state of actual forgiveness after transgressions (Eaton et al., 2006, p. 371). B. The Dark Triad 1. What Is The Dark Triad (Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy) Giammarco, E.A., & Vernon, P.A. (2014b). Vengeance and the Dark Triad: The role of empathy and perspective taking in trait forgivingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 23-29. Giammarco and Vernon (2014) described that Paulhus and Williams (2002) named the “Dark Triad,” which includes three separate, but associated, antisocial personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (p. 23). The Dark Triad exhibits an extreme sense of supremacy and privilege and poor ability to feel remorse and empathy, and it frequently results to actions that exploit others for selfish gain (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 23). People who have high Machiavellianism have the tendency to be calculating and deceiving, while those with high psychopathy exhibit reckless, self-centered, and dominantly destructive actions towards others (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 23). People who have high narcissism have an inflated view of themselves and tend to have no or poor empathy for the welfare of others (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 23). Eaton, J., Ward Struthers, C., & Santelli, A.G. (2006). Dispositional and state forgiveness: The role of self-esteem, need for structure, and narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 41(2), 371-380. Eaton et al. (2006) cited Raskin and Terry (1988) who defined narcissism as a personality trait that has the characteristics of “self-admiration, superiority, and interpersonal exploitiveness” (p. 374). They stressed that, based on their review of literature from 1998 to 2003, narcissists tend to react more violently to insults, provide negative feedback, and report more quantity of interpersonal transgressions in their everyday life than others (Eaton et al., 2006, p. 374). 2. Measuring Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy Pabian, S., De Backer, C., & Vandebosch, H. (2015). Dark Triad personality traits and adolescent cyber-aggression. Personality and Individual Differences, 75, 41-46. Pabian et al. (2015) used the Short Dark Triad questionnaire to measure Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy for 324 adolescents aged 14 to 18 years old. It has a total of 27 items with 9 items measuring each trait. This questionnaire came from Jones and Paulhus (2014) (as cited in Pabian et al., 2015, p. 43). Stellwagen, K.K., & Kerig, P.K. (2013). Dark Triad personality traits and theory of mind among school-age children. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(1), 123-127. Stellwagen and Kerig (2013) examined the connections between the Dark Triad and the theory of mind (TOM) skills for 146 middle-school participants. The teachers of these students collected the data. They used the Machiavellian rating scale for young children, a rating which is based on adult measures of the same trait (Stellwagen & Kerig, 2013, p. 125). The internal consistency of this scale was 0.84 (Stellwagen & Kerig, 2013, p. 125). These teachers also used the Narcissistic Personality Inventory for Children (NPIC). Students answered 18 items. The internal consistency for this scale based on this study was 0.75 (Stellwagen & Kerig, 2013, p. 125). In addition, to measure psychopathy, the teachers used the dimensions of Antisocial Process Screening Device—Teacher Report (APSD) that were related with psychopathy (Stellwagen & Kerig, 2013, p. 125). The study showed the following internal consistencies for impulsivity, CU, and narcissism, which were 0.80, 0.77, and 0.89, respectively (Stellwagen & Kerig, 2013, p. 125). 3. The Dark Triad Traits and Apology Giammarco, E.A., & Vernon, P.A. (2014a). Interpersonal guilt and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, In Press, 1-6. Feeling guilt can impact the ability to ask for an apology and to be sincere in doing so. Giammarco and Vernon (2014) studied the association between the Dark Triad traits and the Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire (IGQ). Their sampling included 219 undergraduate students aged 17 to 53 years old. These researchers learned that narcissism was the only trait that showed negative correlation with overall guilt and self-hate. Machiavellianism and psychopathy exhibited positive correlation with self-hate guilt. Students with high psychopathy also scored highest in empathy deficit. Giammarco and Vernon (2014) concluded that Machiavellianism and psychopathy are more similar in terms of feeling guilt than narcissism. Feeling different aspects of guilt can shape the tendency to apologize. Howell, A.J., Turowski, J.B., & Buro, K. (2012). Guilt, empathy, and apology. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(7), 917-922. Howell, Turowski, and Buro (2012) conducted two studies to understand the correlates of apology using hypothetical scenarios of transgressions. In Study 1, sampling included 90 college students in a Canadian university. Results showed that the scores for Proclivity to Apologize Measure (PAM) were highly correlated with guilt and not correlated with shame. In Study 2, 338 students from a Canadian university participated. Results supported the findings of Study 1 wherein students who were prone to feel guilty were more willing to apologize. These researchers concluded that being apologetic reflects guilt and empathy, and so apology can become a self-regulation mechanism. Those who have the Dark Triad traits may feel less guilt and empathy, thereby reducing their propensity to ask for forgiveness. At the same time, victims with high empathy may be more willing to forgive than those with low empathy. II. Empathy A. What is Empathy? Giammarco, E.A., & Vernon, P.A. (2014). Vengeance and the Dark Triad: The role of empathy and perspective taking in trait forgivingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 23-29. Empathy is the ability to react to the feelings and experiences of other people (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 23). Empathy may not be a unidimensional construct and may be categorized into cognitive empathy and emotional/affective empathy. Cognitive empathy refers to the ability to be familiar with the emotional experiences of others without undergoing their emotional states, while emotional empathy pertains to a spontaneous and involuntary emotional response to other people’s experiences (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 23). It is possible to have cognitive empathy, and yet not feel emotional empathy, which means that people with high cognitive empathy may not even want to apologize to others, particularly if they have the Dark Triad traits. 1. Cognitive Development of Empathy by Age Decety, J., & Svetlova, M. (2012). Putting together phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspectives on empathy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(1), 1-24. Decety and Svetlova (2012) asserted that the ontogeny or the study of course of development of human empathy will be better examined when connected to the development of the social human brain. They argued that empathy should be studied within the neurodevelopmental perspective that acknowledges the continuations and changes in social and emotional capabilities from infancy to adulthood. They combined the perspectives of neuroevolution and developmental science to determine the information processing and brain mechanisms involved in empathy and caring and to support their belief in the multiple-system framework of socioemotional development. Decety and Svetlova (2012) believed that, by two years old, toddlers may exhibit empathy and that their ability to empathize develop further through their social interactions (p. 8). They added that human infants, nonetheless, demonstrate empathy through emotional contagion, or reflecting the emotional responses of others around them. They argued that social interaction can impact people’s ability to feel empathy for others, which indicates that, as people grow older, the ability to empathize is a product of their traits, social interactions, and social learning abilities. B. Measuring Empathy Giammarco, E.A., & Vernon, P.A. (2014). Vengeance and the Dark Triad: The role of empathy and perspective taking in trait forgivingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 23-29. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was designed as a multidimensional instrument for measuring differences in empathy among individuals (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 23). The IRI has two subscales that measure the cognitive side of empathy: fantasy that measures the ability to empathize with fictional characters and perspective-taking that determines the ability to see the viewpoint of other people. It also measures two subscales of emotional empathy: empathic concern that assesses the ability of a person to feel compassion and concern for people undergoing negative experiences and personal distress or the ability to feel distress while seeing others go through negative experiences (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 23). C. Empathy and The Dark Triad Giammarco, E.A., & Vernon, P.A. (2014). Vengeance and the Dark Triad: The role of empathy and perspective taking in trait forgivingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 23-29. Giammarco and Vernon (2014) studied the connection among the Dark Triad, vengefulness, empathy, and trait forgiveness. Their participants were 219 undergraduate students aged 17 to 53 years old from a university in Canada. Findings showed that gender affected some of the variables, where men scored higher than women on psychopathy and women scored higher on empathy. Furthermore, those who scored high on Machiavellianism and psychopathy showed significantly lower scores on empathic concern, while narcissism had moderate negative correlation. Those who had high Machiavellianism and psychopathy further showed low trait forgivingness and perspective taking, which people with high narcissism did not exhibit (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p. 27). This study supported earlier findings that showed that Machiavellianism and psychopathy are the “darker” Dark Triad traits because of the lower inability to feel empathy, to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive others. Jonason, P.K., & Krause, L. (2013). The emotional deficits associated with the Dark Triad traits: Cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and alexithymia. Personality and Individual Differences, 55(5), 532-537. Alexithymia refers to the incapacity to explain one’s feelings. Jonason and Krause (2013) studied the correlations between the Dark Triad traits and emotional deficiencies that include lack of empathy and alexithymia. Their sampling included 242 female online volunteers. Findings showed that high levels of emotional deficits predicted higher psychopathology that was linked to lower general empathy and externally-geared thinking. They concluded that an evolutionary framework can help understand empathy differences across genders. D. Empathy and Apology Davis, J.R., & Gold, G.J. (2011). An examination of emotional empathy, attributions of stability, and the link between perceived remorse and forgiveness. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(3), 392-397. The empathy model of forgivingness believes that emotional empathy is essential to forgivingness after transgressors offer their apologies (Davis & Gold, 2011, p. 393). Empathy may also mediate the relationship between an apology and forgivingness (Davis & Gold, 2011, p. 393). The attribution theory, on the contrary, asserts that an apology can affect the victim’s impressions of the transgressor and that the attributions of stability would decrease through apologies that manifest responsibility and empathy (Davis & Gold, 2011, p. 392). Davis and Gold (2011) studied the connections among empathy, attributions of stability, perceived remorse, and forgivingness. Their sampling included 170 college students. Findings showed that victims were more likely to forgive transgressors who showed remorse and emotional empathy. III. Oxytocin (OXT) A. What is OXT and its Biological Basis? Feldman, R. (2012). Oxytocin and social affiliation in humans. Hormones and Behavior, 61(3), 380-391. Oxytocin (OXT) is a nine amino-acid neuropeptide that the hypothalamus synthesizes. Feldman (2012) asserted that the review of studies and her laboratory work with her peers showed that OXT serves as the neurohormonal component for diverse interpersonal relationships among humans, especially parental, romantic, and filial relationships. She explained that the OXT system has a reciprocal relationship with the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA) that influences the stress response, and that some neuroanatomical findings showed that the HPA and OXT systems have an interdependent regulation relationship (Feldman, 2012, p. 382). B. History and Uses Feldman, R. (2012). Oxytocin and social affiliation in humans. Hormones and Behavior, 61(3), 380-391. OXT has effects on social cognition and regulation of stress responses. OXT is particularly essential to initiating breastfeeding and the development of mother-infant bonds (Feldman, 2012, p. 382). It launches uterine contraction and the development of milk for breastfeeding (Feldman, 2012, p. 382). It can also be essential to the formation of close dyadic bonds, such as between lovers and friends. Kanat, M., Heinrichs, M., & Domes, G. (2014). Oxytocin and the social brain: Neural mechanisms and perspectives in human research. Brain Research, 1580, 160-171. Kanat, Heinrichs, and Domes (2014) noted that, according to human and animal behavioral studies, OXT produces anxiolytic effects, which means that OXT reduces anxiety. Furthermore, OXT may have opposite effects on the emotion-processing abilities of men and women. OXT administration increased amygdala reactivity for women, but reduced the latter for men in two different studies (Kanat et al., 2014, p. 163). Increase in OXT can increase empathy for women when they become more reactive to fearful expressions of other people, while men may not show the same level of empathy despite higher amygdala reactivity,which suggests higher aggression and poorer interpersonal relationships. C. Administration Methods and Ethics Hollander, E., Bartz, J., Chaplin, W., Phillips, A., Sumner, J., Soorya, L., Anagnostou, E., & Wasserman, S. (2007). Oxytocin increases retention of social cognition in autism. Biological Psychiatry, 61(4), 498-503. The three administration methods for OXT are intranasal method, intravenous method, and gene studies. Intravenous method is used when OXT is administered through the vein. Intranasal method is used when OXT is administered through the nose. Gene studies, or molecular genetic methods, are used to examine the natural individual differences in OXT and implications for social cognition and behaviors. Veening, J.G., & Olivier, B. (2013). Intranasal administration of oxytocin: Behavioral and clinical effects, a review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(8), 1445-1465. The first intranasal administration of OXT was done in 1958 to induce or sustain labor or lactation (Veening & Olivier, 2013, p. 1449). It was later used to manage the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress, among others (Veening & Olivier, 2013, p. 1449). The last ten years focused on the role of OXT in social interactions and the processing and development of trust, mind-reading, face-processing, and memory (Veening & Olivier, 2013, p. 1449). This article noted that, based on human studies, the intranasal administration of OXT has strong impacts on the amygdala and related brainstem regions. Intranasal administration of OXT may directly impact the brain, although exact underlying mechanisms and the accuracy of connection between the OXT and neurocognitive changes are not yet determined. MacDonald, E., Dadds, M.R., Brennan, J.L.,Williams, K., Levy, F., & Cauchi, A.J. (2011). A review of safety, side-effects and subjective reactions to intranasal oxytocin in human research. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36(8), 1114-1126. MacDonald et al. (2011) reviewed 38 randomly controlled trial studies for the past twenty years. They learned that, though intranasal OXT did not show reliable side effects, increasing dosage beyond 40 IU and dosing OXT in the long run can have negative social effects. They stressed the dearth of studies on younger and female clinical populations. D. Alternative Methods of Manipulation and Their Strength (Cuddling, Laughter, etc.) Field, T. (2010). Touch for socioemotional and physical well-being: A review. Developmental Review, 30(4), 367-383. Field (2010) reviewed studies which supported that touch, particularly, touch that recipients perceive as pleasant, can have positive socioemotional and physical effects. Hugging, back rubs, and loving touches may decrease cortisol (stress hormone) and increase oxytocin. Touching others with love can have beneficial OXT-raising effects as intranasal administration of OXT. There is lack of studies on alternative ways of increasing OXT and how they fare in comparison to intranasal administration of OXT. Tai, K., Zheng, X., & Narayanan, J. (2011). Touching a teddy bear mitigates the negative effects of social exclusion. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(6), 618-626. Retrieved from http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3546 Tai, Zhen, and Narayanan (2011) examined if touching a bear decreases the negative effects of social exclusion. They conducted two studies, Study 1 focused on measuring hypothetical exclusion, while Study 2 observed the effects of actual exclusion. Study 1 had 181 undergraduate participants, while Study 2 had 95 undergraduate students. Their findings showed that when participants touched a teddy bear, they behaved more prosocially than those who did not. E. OXT, Empathy, and Pro-Social Behavior Evans, S.L., Dal Monte, O., Noble, P., & Averbeck, B.B. (2014). Intranasal oxytocin effects on social cognition: A critique. Brain Research, 1580, 69-77. Evans et al. (2014) reviewed studies on how intranasal OXT affects empathy and pro-social behavior. They noted that related studies did not provide conclusive evidence that OXT affected empathy and pro-social behavior, although OXT may enhance self-reported emotional empathy by making facial expressions more salient, although it does not necessarily improve the ability of people to be accurate in assessing facial expressions (Evans et al., 2014, p. 74). OXT may also improve pro-social behavior, although there are not enough studies to support this connection. Striepens, N., Kendrick, K.M., Maier, W., & Hurlemann, R. (2011). Prosocial effects of oxytocin and clinical evidence for its therapeutic potential. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 32(4), 426-450. In their review of literature, Striepens et al. (2011) learned that intranasal and intravenous OXT administration improved pro-social behavior, particularly through showing improved signs of trust, empathy, kindness, and socially-reinforced learning. Increasing oxytocin can improve face emotion recognition and decrease fear for fear-stimulating facial expressions. Higher OXT may also enhance empathy that results to pro-social behaviors of generosity and greater trust that facilitates social interactions (Striepens et al., 2011, p. 431). Uzefovsky, F., Shalev, I., Israel, S., Edelman, S., Raz, Y., Mankuta, D., Knafo-Noam, A., & Ebstein, R.P. (2015). Oxytocin receptor and vasopressin receptor 1a genes are respectively associated with emotional and cognitive empathy. Hormones and Behavior, 67, 60-65. Uzefovsky et al. (2015) conducted a gene study on OXT and vasopressin receptor 1a (AVPR1a) genes. Their sampling included 367 young adults. Participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Empathy Quotient, and the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy (QMEE). Their findings showed that OXT is more related to emotional empathy, while vasopressin receptor 1a gene is connected to cognitive empathy. F. OXT and Apology Ohtsubo, Y., Matsunaga, M., Komiya, A., Tanaka, H., Mifune, N., & Yagi, A. (2014). Oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphism and self-punishment after an unintentional transgression. Personality and Individual Differences, 69, 182-186. Ohtsubo et al. (2014) studied particular genes in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) and their impacts on self-punishment. Their sampling included 119 undergraduates from a Japanese university. They played a card game where they committed an unintentional transgression and were given the option to reduce their monetary reward (which measures self-punishment). Findings showed that those with GA or GG genotype punished themselves more than those with AA genotype. This article suggests that OXT can affect the propensity to ask for an apology. Feeser, M., Fan, Y.,Weigand, A., Hahn, A., Gärtner, M., Böker, H., Grimm, S., & Bajbouj, M. (in press). Oxytocin improves mentalizing–Pronounced effects for individuals with attenuated ability to empathize. Psychoneuroendocrinology, in press, 1-29. Feeser et al. (in press) conducted a randomly controlled study on 71 male subjects to determine if OXT improves mentalizing that influences empathy ability. They learned that OXT improved mentalizing particularly for those with low empathy scores. They concluded that OXT can play a large role in social cognition and improvement of poor social skills. IV. Conclusion A. What is still unclear and what are the gaps the current OXT social-personality research? It remains unclear how particular administration methods impact different areas of the brain and how such effects shape social personality. Veening and Olivier (2013) emphasized the importance of conducting connectivity studies in the future to understand how different methods impact various brain areas (p. 1457). They added that the “cascading effect” of intranasal OXT must also be studied. This effect refers to production of peripheral OXT. Striepens et al. (2011) added that the role of amygdala in the OXT system deserves future study. They stressed that it would be interesting to determine if OXT modulation in animals that resulted to social recognition and stress relief can have the same effects as in human beings. Furthermore, Tai et al. (2011) noted the need to study how alternative methods of increasing OXT, such as cuddling, hugging, and other non-intranasal, non-intravenous, and non-genetic methods, can impact OXT levels and social cognition. B. Implications for Apologetic Behavior and Future Direction of OXT Research Randomly controlled studies and review of literature suggests that there is a need to further study how OXT affects apologetic behavior. Uzefovsky et al. (2015) noted that gene studies may reveal how having OXT and certain genes can affect social personality and social behaviors. OXT can impact apologetic behavior through improving empathy in the Dark Triad. Feeser et al. (in press) noted that, if increasing OXT can be specifically helpful for clinical populations, it can help improve social cognition. Striepens et al. (2011), nonetheless, stressed the need to study further the effects of increasing OXT for younger clinical and non-clinical groups. These studies implicated that OXT may enhance empathy and that it can help alleviate the social and emotional cognitive deficits of people with the Dark Triad traits. They noted the importance of determining other methods that can have lower possible side effects, particularly when considering its application for younger participants, including children and adolescents, and in finding OXT-enhancing methods that can be used in the long run without side effects. IV. References Davis, J.R., & Gold, G.J. (2011). An examination of emotional empathy, attributions of stability, and the link between perceived remorse and forgiveness. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(3), 392-397. Decety, J., & Svetlova, M. (2012). Putting together phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspectives on empathy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(1), 1-24. Eaton, J., Ward Struthers, C., & Santelli, A.G. (2006). Dispositional and state forgiveness: The role of self-esteem, need for structure, and narcissism. Personality and Individual Differences, 41(2), 371-380.Evans, S.L., Dal Monte, O., Noble, P., & Averbeck, B.B. (2014). Intranasal oxytocin effects on social cognition: A critique. Brain Research, 1580, 69-77. Feeser, M., Fan, Y.,Weigand, A., Hahn, A., Gärtner, M., Böker, H., Grimm, S., & Bajbouj, M. (in press). Oxytocin improves mentalizing–Pronounced effects for individuals with attenuated ability to empathize. Psychoneuroendocrinology, in press, 1-29. Feldman, R. (2012). Oxytocin and social affiliation in humans. Hormones and Behavior, 61(3), 380-391. Field, T. (2010). Touch for socioemotional and physical well-being: A review. Developmental Review, 30(4), 367-383. Giammarco, E.A., & Vernon, P.A. (2014a). Interpersonal guilt and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, In Press, 1-6. Giammarco, E.A., & Vernon, P.A. (2014b). Vengeance and the Dark Triad: The role of empathy and perspective taking in trait forgivingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 23-29.Howell, A.J., Turowski, J.B., & Buro, K. (2012). Guilt, empathy, and apology. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(7), 917-922. Hollander, E., Bartz, J., Chaplin, W., Phillips, A., Sumner, J., Soorya, L., Anagnostou, E., & Wasserman, S. (2007). Oxytocin increases retention of social cognition in autism. Biological Psychiatry, 61(4), 498-503. Jonason, P.K., & Krause, L. (2013). The emotional deficits associated with the Dark Triad traits: Cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and alexithymia. Personality and Individual Differences, 55(5), 532-537. Kanat, M., Heinrichs, M., & Domes, G. (2014). Oxytocin and the social brain: Neural mechanisms and perspectives in human research. Brain Research, 1580, 160-171. MacDonald, E., Dadds, M.R., Brennan, J.L.,Williams, K., Levy, F., & Cauchi, A.J. (2011). A review of safety, side-effects and subjective reactions to intranasal oxytocin in human research. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36(8), 1114-1126. Ohtsubo, Y., Matsunaga, M., Komiya, A., Tanaka, H., Mifune, N., & Yagi, A. (2014). Oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphism and self-punishment after an unintentional transgression. Personality and Individual Differences, 69, 182-186. Pabian, S., De Backer, C., & Vandebosch, H. (2015). Dark Triad personality traits and adolescent cyber-aggression. Personality and Individual Differences, 75, 41-46. Stellwagen, K.K., & Kerig, P.K. (2013). Dark Triad personality traits and theory of mind among school-age children. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(1), 123-127. Striepens, N., Kendrick, K.M., Maier, W., & Hurlemann, R. (2011). Prosocial effects of oxytocin and clinical evidence for its therapeutic potential. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 32(4), 426-450. Tai, K., Zheng, X., & Narayanan, J. (2011). Touching a teddy bear mitigates the negative effects of social exclusion. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(6), 618-626. Retrieved from http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3546 Uzefovsky, F., Shalev, I., Israel, S., Edelman, S., Raz, Y., Mankuta, D., Knafo-Noam, A., & Ebstein, R.P. (2015). Oxytocin receptor and vasopressin receptor 1a genes are respectively associated with emotional and cognitive empathy. Hormones and Behavior, 67, 60-65. Veening, J.G., & Olivier, B. (2013). Intranasal administration of oxytocin: Behavioral and clinical effects, a review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(8), 1445-1465. Ward Struthers, C., Eaton, J., Santelli, A.G., Uchiyama, M., & Shirvani, N. (2008). The effects of attributions of intent and apology on forgiveness: When saying sorry may not help the story. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(4), 983-992. Read More