Humans are social beings who live their daily lives through mainly social interaction and behaviours. The reinforcement learning theory states/predicts that consequences of behaviours are learned...Show moreHumans are social beings who live their daily lives through mainly social interaction and behaviours. The reinforcement learning theory states/predicts that consequences of behaviours are learned through an action-outcome association of stimuli. In order to help someone, one must understand what the context-specific action would lead to. In the current study, it was tested whether reinforcement learning is influenced by the administration of oxytocin and whether its hypothesized effect is moderated by psychopathic traits. The sample size consisted of thirty male participants, in the range of 19 and 34 years old. The participants were given a probabilistic reinforcement learning task, in form of a monetary-reward game to play for three different agents: either themselves, others, or no one. The repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant effect of time, indicating that reinforcement learning improves through repeated trials. On the other hand, the administration of oxytocin and the presence of psychopathic traits had no statistically significant effect on one’s ability to learn through reinforcement. Interactions between reinforcement learning, the agent played for, oxytocin administration, and psychopathic traits were not evident in the data. Thus the current investigation indicates the presence of psychopathic traits or the administration of oxytocin does not correlate with reinforcement learning in our sample. However, our study’s broad age range poses a limitation due to a likely variety in cognition within participants, which may be an important consideration for future researchers.Show less
