Oxytocin Selectively Improves Empathic Accuracy
Psychological SciencePublished 20 September 2010
Jennifer A. Bartz, Jamil Zaki, Niall Bolger, Eric Hollander, Natasha N. Ludwig, Alexander Kolevzon
Citations443
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score2.50
SNIP2.29
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TL;DR
Observations imply that rather than working universally, oxytocin may selectively facilitate social cognition given certain constraints, which would be consistent with broader interactionist views emphasizing that individual differences in competencies interact with situational variables to determine behavior.
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Psychology
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