Summary: A new study shows that women who take oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) are, on average, about 10% less accurate at identifying subtle, complex emotions in others.
Source: Frontiers.
The pill may subtly reduce your ability to read complex emotions
Researchers have found that women using oral contraceptives showed small but measurable differences in recognizing nuanced emotional expressions. Rather than testing for basic emotions such as happiness or fear, the study assessed recognition of complex emotions — for example, pride or contempt — using a demanding task that isolated the eye region of faces. Published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, the research reports that women taking OCPs were nearly 10% less accurate, on average, at identifying the most ambiguous and complex expressions compared with women who were not using OCPs. These findings raise questions about how hormonal contraception might subtly influence social perception and interpersonal interactions.
Balancing risks and benefits of oral contraceptives
When considering oral contraceptives, many women receive reliable medical information about physical effects. In addition to preventing pregnancy, hormonal contraceptives can reduce acne, regulate heavy periods, and help manage endometriosis, and they are associated with lower risks of ovarian, uterine, and colon cancers. At the same time, some types of contraception are linked with modest increases in the risk of breast and cervical cancers, blood clots, and elevated blood pressure.
Compared with these well-documented physical effects, the psychological and social consequences of long-term hormonal exposure are less well understood. “More than 100 million women worldwide use oral contraceptives, but remarkably little is known about their effects on emotion, cognition and behavior,” says senior author Dr. Alexander Lischke of the University of Greifswald. He and colleagues note that incidental findings from prior studies hinted at a negative effect of OCPs on emotion recognition, which could influence how users form and sustain close relationships.
How the study tested emotion recognition
To examine this question directly, the researchers recruited two comparable groups of healthy women: 42 participants who were using oral contraceptives and 53 participants who were not. The study used an especially challenging emotion recognition task designed to detect subtle differences that everyday interactions would not reveal. Participants were asked to identify complex emotional expressions shown only in the eye region of faces, a method that reduces obvious cues and focuses on subtle, socially relevant information.
The researchers expected any effects to be small, and the results matched that expectation: the differences were subtle but consistent. Women using OCPs performed similarly to non-users on easily recognized expressions, but their accuracy declined when identifying the most difficult, nuanced expressions. On average, OCP users were nearly 10% less accurate than non-users when decoding those complex emotional signals.
The impairment affected recognition of both positive and negative complex emotions and persisted regardless of the type of oral contraceptive reported by users or the menstrual cycle phase among non-users.
What might explain the effect?
Lischke points out that cyclic fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone are known to influence emotion recognition and to modulate activity and connectivity in brain regions involved in social processing. Because most oral contraceptives work by suppressing natural estrogen and progesterone cycles, it is plausible that they could alter emotion recognition in ways consistent with the study’s findings. However, the precise biological mechanism remains unclear and requires more investigation.
The authors emphasize that these findings do not justify immediate changes to clinical prescribing guidelines. Instead, they call for further research to replicate and expand on the results, examining factors such as contraceptive type, duration of use, timing, and individual differences. Crucially, follow-up studies should determine whether the observed changes in emotion recognition have meaningful consequences for interpersonal functioning, including the initiation and maintenance of intimate relationships. If such social effects are confirmed, clinicians and patients would benefit from clearer information about potential psychological and social side effects of long-term OCP use.
About this research
Funding: This study was supported by the German Research Foundation.
Source and publication: Frontiers in Neuroscience. Organized by NeuroscienceNews.com. Image credit: public domain.
Original research: Rike Pahnke, Anett Mau-Moeller, Martin Junge, Julia Wendt, Mathias Weymar, Alfons O. Hamm and Alexander Lischke, “Oral Contraceptives Impair Complex Emotion Recognition in Healthy Women.” Published February 11, 2019. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.01041
Abstract (summary)
Despite widespread use of oral contraceptives, little is known about their effects on emotion, cognition, and behavior. Prior incidental findings suggested OCPs might impair recognition of others’ emotional expressions, which could affect interpersonal interactions. This study tested whether women using OCPs (n = 42) differ from non-users (n = 53) in recognizing complex emotional expressions and whether any differences depend on menstrual cycle phase. The results show that OCP use was associated with reduced accuracy for complex emotions, particularly for expressions that were difficult to identify. These differences did not vary with menstrual cycle phase. The findings indicate that OCPs can impair complex emotion recognition and suggest the need for further research and clearer information for women considering contraceptive options.