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It seems obvious, or should, that the correct answer is B. Yet three quarters of thesubjects in a classic study gave a wrong answer. In the study, they were asked torespond to a series of 18 line-judgment tasks like the one you just took, but they didn’tget to respond until they heard the responses of eight other people, all shills who hadbeen instructed to respond to 6 of the 18 comparisons with pre-determined wronganswers. The subjects and shills had never met before the study, but even in a groupof strangers, the subjects felt enough pressure to fit in with their peers that 76% of themactually agreed with a patently wrong answer at least once during the session. 22The subjects in that study did not receive oxytocin, but many studies have confirmedthat oxytocin is what triggers us to engage in the behaviors that demonstrate loyalty toour tribes. 23Apparently, oxytocin can trump our powers of reasoning, and when it does,we won’t have a clue that our loyalty can make us take stands that are irrational.B. We Turn on OutsidersUnfortunately, as much as oxytocin prompts pro-social behaviors toward groups we arein or want to join; it also prompts anti-social behaviors to a comparable or greaterdegree toward people outside our group. 24In a University of Amsterdam study,oxytocin was administered to Dutch students before they were asked to resolve thismoral quandary: Would they push one person under a runaway trolley in order to save22 Dutton, supra note 5 at 88-89, citing Solomon E. Asch, “Opinions and Social Pressure,” 193 ScientificAmerican 31-35 (1955).23 Carsten K.W. De Dreu, Lindred L. Greer, Gerben A Van Kleef, Shaul Shalvi, & Michel J.J. Handgraff,“Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism,” 108 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ofthe United States of America 1262-1266 (January 25, 2011).24 Id.8