Some thoughts on the oxytocin research

This is written with reference to this post.

I don't have full access to the study, so I don't know if these questions are addressed; I can only rely on the NYT article. It would appear that oxytocin does not create preference, it merely enhances or facilitates its expression (or lowers inhibitions to expressing it)? Are the preferences themselves being interpreted correctly? Do the researches take into account how assumptions or judgments concerning identity are made? How do we judge who belongs to the in-group and who belongs to the out-group? (What would have happened if pictures were shown along with the names? And if the faces shown went against one's expectations? An Arab with a Dutch last name, for instance.) The researchers relied on the subject's presumptions about ethnicity/nationality filling in the blanks in information.

It may be that the subjects have not be so indoctrinated that they still hold on to "innate" preferences. But how many of them refused to make decisions based on the lack of information? If I were a test subject and I was asked to pick someone to sacrifice based on the last name, I could walk away from the test because I found the moral dilemmas poorly constructed. Or I could stay and be bound by the limitations of the tests (and the researchers). If I choose to withhold judgment, I could be a poor test subject, and yet just because I respond (quickly or slowly, it doesn't matter), it doesn't mean that my response is untutored, "natural" instinct or emotion. I could be reacting with bias or bigotry. My preference may even be "moral."

The point is, I don't think one's determination about who is in the in-group and who is not is based on sense data alone--there is more to it, and it involves judgment, an act of the intellect. I don't think membership is reducible to "who looks like one of us" but why shouldn't that be considered as well? That way we get a better idea of the interplay between instinct, emotion, and understanding in the forming of group identity. But I guess that might take us too far from the original point of the research, which was to look at the effect of oxytocin.