Acceptance, love and whole lot of blind faith!

Notice I did NOT mention Oxytocin.

Weird.

Scientists have discovered that the hormone oxytocin could help wallflowers overcome awkwardness in social situations.

The chemical dubbed “the hormone of love” is known to increase empathy and bonding – especially parents and their children.

But now researchers have found it improves the social skills of the shy – but has little effect on those who are naturally confident.

The finding could have implications for those with severe social deficiencies, often apparent in conditions like autism.

Researchers at Israel’s Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment and Columbia University were examining whether the hormone, which occurs naturally in the body could make us more understanding of others.

They conducted a test of 27 healthy adult men, giving them the hormone or a placebo via a nasal spray and then asking them to perform an ‘empathic accuracy task’ – which measures their powers of reading the thoughts and feelings of others.

This involved watching others discussing emotional moments in their lives, then rating how they felt those people were feeling.

The scientists, whose research is published in Psychological Science, also measured the participants’ social competency, using a test known as AQ which is usually used in autistic patients.

They found that oxytocin did improve powers of empathy – but only among those who were less socially proficient in the first place.

The more socially comfortable participants performed well on the empathetic task regardless of whether they were on oxytocin or placebo.

But less socially proficient participants performed significantly better on oxytocin, with their empathetic powers performance identical to that of the more outgoing participants.

Prof Jennifer Bartz, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said: “Oxytocin is widely believed to make all people more empathetic and understanding of others.

“Our study contradicts that. Instead, oxytocin appears to be helpful only for those who are less socially proficient.

“Our data show that oxytocin selectively improves social cognition in people who are less socially proficient, but had little impact on more socially proficient individuals.

“While more research is required, these results highlight the potential oxytocin holds for treating social deficits in people with disorders marked by deficits in social functioning like autism.”

Nor will any of the quoted individuals below… And yes, although the socially inept might be assisted with the drug (in a way beer has been doing for ages) and ‘friends’ might initially be sought while living through chemistry, I don’t think it will be the way to keep them:

Human friendship poses a profound evolutionary puzzle. Close friends frequently help each other unconditionally, with little concern for past behaviors or future returns. But, such unconditional aid also puts one at risk of exploitation at the hands of false friends. Without commonly known checks on exploitation, such as tit-for-tat accounting, how do people manage to cultivate and maintain such bonds of unconditional aid? One of the more interesting findings concerns the kinds of things that friends are expected to help each other with in the U.S., we often expect friends to talk through personal problems and disclose deep secrets , However, there are many places in the world where such verbal, emotional support is only a minor concern in friendships which such talk therapy doesn’t play a role. This variation is interesting, but it also raises an important question. What makes a relationship friendship?

Good question. Here are some possible answers (click here for more):

“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.”
– Aristotle (4th century B.C.)

“Friendship is essentially a partnership.” — Aristotle (4th century B.C.)

“Friendship is Love without his wings!”
– Lord Byron (1806)

“Friendship makes prosperity more brilliant, and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.”
– Cicero (44 B.C.)

“True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost”
– Charles Caleb Colton (1825)

“Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need.”
– Epicurus (3rd century B.C.)

“Friends show their love in times of trouble…”
– Euripides (408 B.C.)

“One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.”
– Euripides (408 B.C.)

“A good friend is my nearest relation.”
– Thomas Fuller (1732)

“My friend is he who will tell me my faults in private.”
– Solomon Ibn Gabirol

“Your friend is your needs answered.”
– Kahil Gibran

“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”
– Kahil Gibran.

“Let your best be for your friend…”
– Kahil Gibran

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.”
– Kahil Gibran

“A sympathetic friend can be quite as dear as a brother.”
– Homer (9th century B.C.)

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”
– Samuel Johnson

“However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.”
– La Rochefoucauld (1665)

“A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care to acquire.”
– La Rochefoucauld (1665)