Vanessa Van Edwards explains how oxytocin drives trust and connection. Direct eye contact, physical touch, and shared moments like laughing together trigger its release. Aim for three mutual moments in the first few minutes of meeting someone to build instant rapport.
Oxytocin is a very complicated chemical in our body, but one of the things that it does, it helps us feel trust. When people do nose sprays of oxytocin, they trust and share and collaborate more in prisoner's dilemmas. The fastest ways that we socially trigger oxytocin are eye contact, touch, and then mutual moments. What I mean by mutual moments is when we both laugh together or when we both say, oh yeah, me too. Yeah, you what? No way. Whatever that me too moment is, that's also like a moment of like, oh wow, camaraderie. So that's why it's a great tactic. I talk about this a lot in Captivate, Not Cues, that trying to find 3 mutual moments in the first few minutes of interaction is really powerful. So like coming loaded with those mutual moments can be very helpful in an interaction because it's just a way that you're triggering that chemical.
