From BNN (hat tip: MB):
German scientists have suggested that a combination of drugs and “peer influence” could make Europeans more amenable to accepting large numbers of migrants in their midst, following a shocking new study at the University of Bonn.
The study, originally published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and later reported by Science Daily, involved 183 subjects, each given 50 euros which they could donate to either migrants or locals in need.
Researchers from the University of Bonn, the University of Lübeck and the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in the U.S. were “surprised” to discover that people donated around 20 per cent more to migrants than to needy locals to begin with, and when drugged with oxytocin — the so-called ‘love hormone’ — participants already well-disposed to migrants gave even more generously.
People who had “negative attitudes towards migrants” were not affected — but, when they were shown how generous others had been towards migrants in combination with the drugs, they “donated up to 74 per cent more”.
Rene Hurlemann, a professor at the university’s department of psychiatry, concluded the “combined enhancement of oxytocin and peer influence” was able to diminish what he described as “selfish motives”.
“Given the right circumstances, oxytocin may help promote the acceptance and integration of migrants into Western cultures,” he mused.
Wow.
Just wow.
