Inducing Self-Dehumanization to Examine Oxytocin and Suicide Risk

Conditions

• Control Condition
• Mechanistic Self-Dehumanization Condition

Eligibility Criteria

Sex

ALL

Age

18 Years - 40 Years

Healthy Volunteers

Accepted

Interventions

• The Ten Item Personality Inventory — OTHER
  The Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) is a brief self-report measure of the Big Five personality dimensions, which will provide the mock basis for the self-dehumanization induction. Participants will indicate responses on 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ("disagree strongly") to 7 ("agree strongly"). Building off previously validated tasks participants will be told that the TIPI measure provided certain information about their personalities (and therefore expectations for their future). To establish credibility, participants will receive accurate feedback surrounding their reported levels of extraversion (high, medium, low). Participants will be randomly assigned to receive one of the following pre-written, feedback scripts as additional implications about their extraversion scores in relationship to future social expectations.
• Mechanistic Self-Dehumanization Condition — OTHER
  Future Mechanistic Self-Dehumanization Script: "Based on your responses, you're the type who will feel at times that you're just a number in the system. The day-to-day pattern of going to work and fulfilling responsibilities will seem repetitive, like you are a mechanical device just going through the motions. You might find that relationships feel distant or lack the warmth you seek, making it challenging to form deeper connections. Over time, each day will blend into the next, which will likely lead to you operating on autopilot, existing among humans."
• Debrief — OTHER
  Debrief: Those in the self-dehumanized condition will receive a brief rehumanization intervention to undo the effects of the self-dehumanized condition. This intervention will involve a reminder that the condition was fabricated and will involve reading quotes involving general themes of humanness. The participants will then share with the experimenter how they connect to their humanness. The experimenter will document responses and encourage engagement in humanizing activities following the study visit. Findings from these qualitative responses will inform a rehumanization intervention in another study.
• Control Condition — OTHER
  Future Control Script: "Based on your responses, you're the type who will have a very normal life. You will wake up, go to your job during the weekdays, and complete all necessary tasks. On the weekends you will spend time doing fulfilling activities. Relationships will have natural ups and down, but overall, you will feel satisfied by your connectedness to others. Though some days may feel monotonous, you will feel relaxed knowing you belong."
• Clinical Interview — DIAGNOSTIC_TEST
  Clinical Interview. Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview-Short Form (SITBI-SF). Participants will complete an in-person interview featuring 72-items about their history of self-injury and suicidal behaviors. This interview includes 6 yes/no style questions about suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans, suicidal gestures, suicidal attempts, nonsuicidal self-injury thoughts, and nonsuicidal self-injury. Each category that is endorsed, across the lifetime, has follow up questions surrounding times, duration, intensity, severity, type, and if medical attention was sought. This interview has sound psychometric properties.
• Self-Report Measures — OTHER
  Depressive Symptom Index - Suicidality Subscale (DSI-SS). Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8). Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire (INQ). Self-Dehumanization Scale (SDS).
• Blood Draw — OTHER
  Five milliliters of blood will be drawn before and after study interventions for the quantification of plasma oxytocin concentrations by certified phlebotomists. Samples will be collected into chilled Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid (EDTA) tubes, inverted ten times to mix with anticoagulants, and centrifuged at 1600g for 15 minutes at 4˚C. Cleared plasma will be aliquoted into cryotubes and stored at -80˚C. Consistent with expert recommendations, oxytocin levels will be obtained from the samples diluted 1:4 (i.e., oxytocin can be discarded through plasma proteins when incorporating an extraction step before conducting the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay \[ELISA\]). Second, to buffer against contrasting concerns, an aliquot of each sample will be analyzed for test-retest purposes. Oxytocin concentrations will be measured using a validated commercially available and sensitive ELISA neurophysin kit (Abcam).

Study Details

The goal of this experiment is to further determine if self-dehumanization is a novel risk factor for suicide. This study will induce self-dehumanization using a novel experimental self-dehumanized future condition (i.e., a futuristic paradigm that likens the individual to a machine) and compare this group to a control group to analyze the pathway between higher perceptions of self-dehumanization, suicidal ideation, and changes in oxytocin concentrations. It is hypothesized that participants randomly assigned to the self-dehumanized mechanistic future condition will exhibit temporary increases in suicidal ideation (which will be thoroughly assessed, intervened upon following the induction) and decreases in oxytocin concentrations as compared to the control condition, which will not display significant changes. Further, we will explore if the magnitude of the oxytocin response will partially mediate the change in suicidal ideation.

Key Dates

Start date

Apr 30, 2026

Status verified

Oct 2025

Primary completion

Aug 31, 2027

Completion

Aug 31, 2028

Study Design

Enrollment

50 participants (estimated)

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Arms

• Experimental: Mechanistic Self-Dehumanization Condition
  A self-dehumanized future condition (i.e., a futuristic paradigm that likens the individual to a machine)
• Active Comparator: Control Condition
  Control Condition

Primary Outcome Measure

Change in Suicidal Ideation [ Time Frame: Baseline and 1 hour later after the experimental induction ]

Central Contacts

• Morgan Robison, M.S.
  (540) 589-4853
  [email protected]
• Thomas E Joiner, Ph.D.
  (850) 644-2040
  [email protected]

Locations (1)

Find similar trials in Tallahassee, FL

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