Oxytocin has received considerable research attention for its role in affiliative behaviors, particularly regarding its pro-social effects. However, more recent evidence has pointed to a potentially broader role of oxytocin signaling, which includes the moderation of non-social cognition. To evaluate the evidence for non-social effects of oxytocin administration, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis with 19 effect estimates from 12 studies. We found no overall significant effect of oxytocin administration on non-social executive functions (p = 0.21; Hedges’ g = 0.10). However, effect sizes across sub-categories of executive function varied, where the effect of oxytocin administration was the largest for cognitive flexibility (Hedges’ g = 0.27). Publication bias was assessed using Robust Bayesian Meta-Analysis, which yielded anecdotal support for the absence of publication bias (BFPB = 0.97). Altogether, our data analysis suggests that oxytocin’s effects may extend beyond social cognitive processing as data synthesis provided evidence supporting a role in non-social cognitive flexibility. The data and analysis output from this meta-analysis are provided via a point-and-click web application.

Oxytocin has received considerable research attention for its role in social cognition and behavior. However, there is emerging evidence that oxytocin may operate in a more domain-general way by also moderating non-social cognition in both animals and humans. This protocol describes a planned systematic review and meta-analysis that will investigate if oxytocin facilitates executive function outside social contexts and which factors may moderate this effect.

Oxytocin administration has demonstrated considerable promise for providing additional support for people with autism who have a desire for such interventions. However, results from studies evaluating the effects of oxytocin administration on autistic characteristics have been mixed. Here we describe a protocol for a planned systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on the effect of oxytocin administration on social and repetitive behaviors in autism, which adopts recently devel-oped methods to more precisely assess the potential impact of effect size dependency and publica-tion bias.