Effects of Oxytocin on Agency in Anxiously Attached Individuals, a Replication and Extension.

Abstract

Oxytocin can promote prosocial behavior but also anti-social effects in anxiously attached individuals. Such individuals desire interpersonal closeness but are preoccupied with abandonment; they also lack agency (self-efficacy, empowerment), possibly because of thwarted attachment needs. By augmenting affiliative strivings, oxytocin may threaten anxiously attached individuals' already fragile sense of agency. Indeed, prior work shows that oxytocin increases communion, especially for avoidant individuals, but decreases agency for anxious individuals. Here, we replicated the oxytocin-avoidance-communion effect (p<.001), with some additional nuance, and the oxytocin-anxiety-agency effect (p=.014) in a larger (N = 77; within-subject), gender diverse sample. We also investigated bodily agency using the rubber hand illusion paradigm. Anxious individuals also evidenced less bodily agency-experiencing greater "loss of own hand"-although this was not potentiated by oxytocin. These findings may explain some of oxytocin's divergent social effects and highlight the tension that can arise between meeting needs for communion/security and agency in interpersonally vulnerable individuals.