This week’s podcast uses the hormone oxytocin to demonstrate how inserting emotionally charged words in research reports may alter public perception of the subject matter. Other factors also may contribute to this effect. One is the tendency of some researchers to limit their literature searches to that published within their own fields. This limited view may bias any conclusions they draw from their own research. Additionally the more remote people are from the workings of the natural world around, the less critically they can analyze research regarding it. And because media reports often embellish information from academic press releases that focus on the positive, this further contributes to the confusion.
For those with access to the Wall Street Journal, I highly recommend neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky’s overview of oxytocin’s darker behavioral role (including xenophobia!), A ‘love hormone’ with a Nasty Little Secret
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