Also, while human beings behave more altruistically toward members of their own group after a dose of oxytocin, they also act more defensively and aggressively against people they perceive as being out of their group—so it’s hardly the angel of our better nature. And no one really knows what oxytocin is doing in the brain: Does it make us interpret others’ social signals differently? Does it just make us pay more attention to faces? Does it simply make us feel warmer toward known things (like people we know) than toward unknown things (people we don’t know)? In the end, the only thing we’re
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