Oxytocin predicts positive affect gains in a role-play interaction.

Introduction: Role-play, a key creative process in theatre, is used in therapeutic interventions to improve social skills, emotion regulation, and memory. Although role-play is widely used as a psychotherapeutic technique, its mechanisms of action are not fully understood.

Methods: Our study introduces a standardized controlled procedure for promoting role-play in the laboratory based on the portrayal of a fictional persona and examines its effects on anxiety, affect, prosocial attitudes, and salivary oxytocin dynamics in 38 participants.