OXT and Anxiety: Although role-play is widely used as a psychotherapeutic technique, its mechanisms of action are not fully understood.<h4>Methods</h4>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.<h4>Results</h4>In our experiment, role-play significantly increased positive affect and prosocial attitudes and decreased anxiety compared to a control condition.