Social Approach: Perry et al. (2015)

• psychology being investigated: - interpersonal distance: distance between two people, the preferred distance varies due to relationship with the other person and cultural factors.

  
  

  - empathy: a person's ability to understand others feeling, thoughts and experiences.

  
  

  - social hormones: oxytocin is a social hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter and plays a role in social bonding. Research conducted shows that in some situations it can lead to envy, hostility etc.
• background: - 1966, based on the relationship between two people, Hall created 4 zones of interpersonal distance: intimate, social, personal and public distance.

  
  

  - 2012, Scheele found that administering oxytocin to males in relationships increased their preferred distance from an attractive female in pretense of a female researcher.

  
  

  - social salience hypothesis predicts that oxytocin increases attention to social cues and affects how a person processes those cues and responds differently.
• Aims: to investigate how oxytocin affects preferred interpersonal distance for those scoring high/low in empathy traits
• experiment 1 CID: (comfortable interpersonal distance)

  
  

  1. the word friend, stranger, ball or authority would apear on screen for 1 sec

  2. then a circular room with a stick figure in the center of the screen appears (indicating the participant)

  3. from one of the 8 doors in the room the protagonist appears and approaches the stick figure

  4. the participant has to press a button for the protagonist to stop

  
  

  - the percentage of the remaining distance was calculated as interpersonal
• experiment 2 (choosing rooms): 1. instructed that they would have a meeting with another participant to discuss personal topics

  2. the room would be laid out per their preference and measured through a computer program

  3. the computer showed participants a room with chairs, tables and plants at different angles.

  4. 84 pairs of rooms shown twice for 2sec

  5. they had to choose between the two rooms
• exp. 2 experimental conition: 6. experimental condition- distance between chairs and angles between chairs
• exp. 2 control condition: distance and angle between table and plant
• sample: 54 male undergraduates from uni of Haifa in Israel, ages 19-32

  received credit or payment for their participation
• oxytocin administration and empathy assessment: participants visited laboratory twice a week (at the same time)
• first visit to laboratory for oxytocin administration and empathy assesment: given either oxytocin or placebo in double-masked procedure

  three droplets of the solution were self-administered into each nostril

  - participants completed the IRI-interpersonal reactivity index.

  
  

  then they waited 45mins alone in a quiet room with nature magazines
• IRI (Interpersonal Reactivity Index): is a measurement tool for assessing empathy
• CID


  comfortable interpersonal distance
• results for CID
• results for choosing rooms
• ethical issues: - deception: for exp.2 they were told that they needed to choose a room to discuss "personal topics"- this could cause distress about the future meeting
• strengths: - high level of standardization: increasing its reliability. the computer allowed control of timings and rooms used in exp.2 were always shown for 2sec

  - high validity: with a double-masked procedure for oxytocin/placebo administration and the CID paradigm has high controls regarding speed visuals.
• weaknesses: - IRS self-report would be biased and subjective, impacted by social desirability bias as being highly empathic is seen as a positive trait

  - Lacks generalizability beyond sample: only used males so results may not be generalizable to females and their interpersonal distance preferences

  - low ecological validity: used a computer stimulus where the protagonists were animations not representative of everyday behaviors
• issues and debates: - The application of psychology to everyday life: oxytocin administration may not help people with sociais deficits

  - Individual and situational explanations: interpersonal distance preference is impacted by an individual's empathy level, which supports the individual side, whereas the social situation promotes oxytocin release.