Who is to blame? Oxytocin promotes nonpersonalistic attributions in response to a trust betrayal

► Participants played a classic trust game in which a trust betrayal happened after six of twelve game rounds. ► In the placebo group, angry rumination about the betrayal predicted personalistic attribution of the trust breach. ► In the Oxytocin group, angry rumination predicted increased nonpersonalistic attributions of the perpetrator's behavior. ► Nonpersonalistic attributions mediated the interactive effect of OT and angry rumination on post-betrayal investment. ► We conclude that OT seems to foster the interpretation of distrustful behavior as caused by non-personalistic factors.