Shakespeare told us to “love all, trust a few,” even to “trust none, for oaths are straws.” Despite such warnings, trust has always been at the centre of all human dealings -- romantic, commercial, or political -- even if the reasons for it have been murky. But now Swiss researchers say they have finally isolated the secret: In oxytocin, we trust. University students who inhaled the hormone in a nasal spray were discovered to be far more trusting of one another -- eager, in fact, to hand over money to strangers in investment deals. The results suggest trust can be bottled and used to forge commercial relationships. Oxytocin levels have long been known to spike with sexual climax or influence the production of mothers’ milk, but the new study suggests they are also “the biological basis of trust among humans.”
