Low- and high-testosterone individuals exhibit decreased aversion to economic risk

Testosterone is positively associated with risk-taking behavior in social domains (e.g., crime, physical aggression). However, the scant research linking testosterone to economic risk preferences presents inconsistent findings. We examined the relationship between endogenous testosterone and individuals' economic preferences (i.e., risk preference, ambiguity preference, and loss aversion) in a large sample (N = 298) of men and women. We found that endogenous testosterone levels have a significant U-shaped association with individuals' risk and ambiguity preferences, but not loss aversion. Specifically, individuals with low or high levels of testosterone (more than 1.5 SD from the mean for their gender) were risk and ambiguity neutral, whereas individuals with intermediate levels of testosterone were risk and ambiguity averse. This relationship was highly similar in men and women. In contrast to received wisdom regarding testosterone and risk, the present data provide the first robust evidence for a nonlinear association between economic preferences and levels of endogenous testosterone.     

It Is Not Just About Testosterone: Physiological Mediators and Moderators of Testosterone’s Behavioral Effects

The inclusion of hormones in social and personality psychology research offers researchers a powerful methodological tool, although careful consideration must be paid to the complex and dynamic biological systems that connect hormones to behavior. Testosterone has been clearly established as a biological fuel for dominance, although behavioral findings have been inconsistent and weak. We suggest a number of physiological systems that affect the influence of testosterone on behavior. Vasopressin synthesis and the aromatization into estradiol both serve to facilitate testosterone’s effects. Testosterone’s behavioral responses to threats are suppressed by basal cortisol and moderated by allele length on the serotonin transporter gene. Variation in the expression of monoamine oxidase A regulates the levels of neurotransmitters responsible for impulse control, potentially suppressing testosterone’s influence over behavior. We argue that researchers must consider these dynamic relationships between hormones and other biological systems when engaging in future social endocrinology research.     

Sex differences in landmark learning by children aged 5 to 12 years

Previous research has shown that men and boys learn routes faster and with fewer errors than do women and girls. Research with adults suggests that men use Euclidean cues when learning a route, whereas women use landmark-based strategies. The strategies used by children have received little study. In Exp. 1, 50 boys and girls, ages 5 to 12 years, were shown a map that contained only landmarks (no streets or roads) and were asked to learn a route consisting of 23 of the landmarks. The children used a pointer to trace the route on the map to a criterion of two successive trials without errors. The performance of boys and girls did not differ significantly on this route-learning task on three measures (number of trials to reach criterion, total time to reach criterion, and total number of errors). In Exp. 2, 52 boys and girls, ages 5 to 12 years, were shown the same map as in Exp. 1 and were asked to learn a route consisting of 12 landmarks. The children traced the route by picking pictures of landmarks in the correct order from a stack of cards with pictures of landmarks on them. Girls made significantly fewer errors than boys on this route-learning task in Exp. 2, and a significantly larger number of girls than boys completed the task. None of the boys in the 5- to 6-yr.-old age group learned the route. When Euclidean cues were minimized in Exp. 2, boys made more errors and took as much time as girls to reach the criterion of two successive correct trials.     

Short-term memory, executive control, and children's route learning

The aim of this study was to investigate route-learning ability in 67 children aged 5 to 11years and to relate route-learning performance to the components of Baddeley's model of working memory. Children carried out tasks that included measures of verbal and visuospatial short-term memory and executive control and also measures of verbal and visuospatial long-term memory; the route-learning task was conducted using a maze in a virtual environment. In contrast to previous research, correlations were found between both visuospatial and verbal memory tasks-the Corsi task, short-term pattern span, digit span, and visuospatial long-term memory-and route-learning performance. However, further analyses indicated that these relationships were mediated by executive control demands that were common to the tasks, with long-term memory explaining additional unique variance in route learning.     

睾酮与人类攻击行为

睾酮是一种可以在男性的睾丸间质细胞、女性卵巢和胎盘的皮层细胞中合成并分泌的雄性激素, 它可以调节个体的各种生理、形态和行为过程, 对个体生存和繁殖至关重要。大量研究表明, 睾酮与社会行为的关联存在双向性, 睾酮可以调节社会行为, 社会行为可以反馈并进一步影响睾酮水平。我们将关注点聚焦于睾酮与人类攻击行为之间的关联。早期研究发现, 高睾酮水平个体表现出更高的攻击性; 近期的研究根据挑战假设理论模型和生物社会地位模型得出, 人体内的睾酮水平对竞争性相互作用具有高度反应性。此外, 通过对大量研究的回顾与分析, 我们总结出睾酮水平的变化可以通过增强杏仁核的反应性或减少前额叶皮质-杏仁核功能耦合来影响攻击行为。未来的研究者应考虑其他激素(如皮质醇)和人格特征调节睾酮和人类攻击行为之间关系的潜在作用, 以及相关的生物学机制。     

Sex differences in route learning by children.

Differences between men and women have been reported with respect to route-learning, but sex differences in children on these and related tasks have not been found. In this study, 51 children ages 5 to 12 years were required to learn a route on a map to criterion and then asked to recall landmarks on that route. Boys made significantly fewer errors and took less time and fewer trials to reach criterion in learning the route, and girls recalled more landmarks than boys. Significant main effects for age were also noted on all measures of route learning and landmark recall. These results suggest that the patterns of route learning that have been ascribed to women and men are present in girls and boys.     

Reactive aggression tracks within‐participant changes in women's salivary testosterone

The relation between testosterone and aggression has been relatively well documented in men, but it is less well understood in women. Here we assessed the relationship between salivary testosterone and reactive aggression (i.e., rejection rate for unfair offers) in the Ultimatum Game. Forty naturally cycling women were tested twice, once in the late follicular phase (around ovulation) and once during the luteal phase. Ovulation was determined using urine test strips measuring luteinizing hormone levels. Salivary samples were assayed for testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, and cortisol at both test sessions. There was no association with the cycle, but multilevel modeling revealed a significant within‐participant association between testosterone and rejection rate for extremely unfair offers (i.e., high reactive aggression), indicating that women showed greater reactive aggression when their testosterone levels were higher. Additionally, we found that women with relatively high individual concentrations of testosterone were more likely to reject extremely unfair offers than women with relatively low concentrations of testosterone. This study is the first to demonstrate that women react more aggressively in response to provocation when their testosterone level is high than when their testosterone is low, suggesting that testosterone plays an important role in the regulation of women's aggressive behavior following social provocation.

     

Aggression and testosterone: Testing a bio-social model

Based upon reports of a positive correlation between circulating testosterone levels and aggression, we draw upon evolutionary psychology to place the action of testosterone in a broader perspective. We propose that testosterone affects competitive status-seeking and that under certain circumstances (including youth) this is expressed as aggression. Involvement in aggression in turn is associated with adherence to an instrumental social representation of aggression which justifies aggression as a means of imposing control over others and increasing self-esteem. Measures of salivary testosterone, masculinity, preferred social representation of aggression, and multiple aggression scales were collected from an undergraduate sample of 119 men. An Aggression factor was derived from principle components analysis of the aggression measures. The strongest correlates of Aggression were holding an instrumental social representation of aggression and youth. Testosterone showed no significant relationship to the single or aggregate measures of aggression or to any of the other psychometric measures. We suggest ways in which previous work may have over-estimated the strength of the association between circulating testosterone and aggression and discuss the possible relationships between age, social representation, and aggression. Aggr. Behav. 23:239–238, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Disinhibitory sensation seeking,personality and gonadal hormones

The study compared normal males who scored at the extremes of Disinhibition (a subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scale) on gonadal hormones. High disinhibitors were higher than lows on testosterone, estradiol and estrone, but not on progesterone. A broader range of personality traits, attitudes and experience was factor analyzed and correlated with the hormone measurements. Two large factors were found: (1) stable extraversion vs neurotic introversion; (2) social deviancy vs social conformity. Testosterone loaded positively on the stable extraversion factor and estradiol loaded on the social deviancy factor. Measures of sensation seeking, impulsivity and heterosexual experience tended to correlate positively with both testosterone and estradiol, and persons low on both of these hormones were characterized by a high degree of self control and social conformity.     

Sex differences in strategy and performance on computerized neuropsychological tests as related to gender identity and age at puberty

Neuropsychological sex differences have since long been under debate. Support for the relation between behavioral differences and biological variables like hormone influence is, however, emerging. Sixteen men and sixteen women, all university students, were tested with computerized neuropsychological tests (APT), the Bem Sexual Role Inventory, and asked about pubertal age. The results were in line with earlier findings of sex differences in neuropsychological tests, men being faster and women more cautious. The assumption that women tend to use left-hemispheric, verbal/serial strategies also in spatial tasks was also partly supported. In women, late onset of puberty was related to better spatial performance, and there were also more intercorrelations between verbal and spatial tests in the female than in the male group, indicating that women use less specific strategies (more g-factor intelligence) in problem solving, or that aptitudes are less compartmentalized in women than in men.     

Sex Differences in Relationships between Verbal Fluency and Personality

The Thurstone Verbal Fluency Test, Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test, and NEO-FFI personality test were administered to 182 university participants (126 female, 56 male). The men scored higher than the women on the spatial test, and the women scored higher than the men for the verbal fluency test, as reported by others. Women reported more extraversion and agreeableness than men. Extraversion was correlated with verbal fluency for both sexes. For the men, verbal fluency was also positively associated with agreeableness, and for the women, verbal fluency was associated with openness and conscientiousness. No relationships between personality and spatial ability were found. Thus, the relationships between cognitive variables and personality factors differed between the sexes. These findings are discussed in terms of the common frontal neural substrate of verbal fluency and these aspects of personality, as well as the inherently social nature of language as a communication tool.     

Hormones and competitive aggression in women

This study used diaries of competitive interactions to explore the relationship between hormones and competitive aggression in women. Thirty women completed approximately 10 diary entries each. In each entry, the women described a recent competitive interaction they had engaged in and noted whether it was expressed aggressively or through other tactics. Each woman received a score for the fraction of her competitive interactions that were expressed using physical aggression, verbal aggression, nothing overt, and so on. Hormones (total testosterone, free testosterone, androstenedione, estradiol, and cortisol) were measured in serum early in the follicular phase. Results indicate that women with low levels of androstenedione and total testosterone were less likely to express their competitive feelings overtly, while women with high levels of androstenedione were more likely than other women to express their competitive feelings through verbal aggression. Estradiol was unrelated to competitive tactics, but women with high estradiol levels reported fewer competitive interactions over athletics than did other women. Aggr. Behav. 29:107–115, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Endogenous estradiol is associated with verbal memory in nondemented older men

This study examined the relationship between endogenous hormones and cognitive function in nondemented, ethnically-diverse community-dwelling older men enrolled in the Einstein Aging Study (EAS). All eligible participants (185 men, mean age=81 years) received neuropsychological assessment (Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT), Logical Memory (LM), Trail Making Test B (TMTB), block design (BD)) and provided blood samples for hormonal assays (total estradiol, total testosterone, calculated free testosterone index). Linear regression analysis adjusted for age, education, body mass index, and cardiovascular comorbidities indicated that men with high levels of total estradiol demonstrated better FCSRT verbal memory performance (β=0.17, p<0.02) compared to men with lower levels of total estradiol. The results remained unchanged when the model was further adjusted for ethnicity. We did not detect an association between testosterone and cognitive performance. These findings indicate that high levels of total estradiol in older men are associated with better performance on a cue-based, controlled learning test of verbal memory that is a sensitive predictor of dementia.     

Masculinity, femininity, and musical composition psychological and psychoendocrinological aspects of musical and spatial faculties

Physiological and psychological masculinity and femininity were assessed in relation to musical capacities and spatial ability. Male composers had lower mean testosterone levels than male instrumentalists and male non-musicians; female composers had higher testosterone levels than female instrumentalists and female non-musicians. Testosterone in saliva was the physiological marker for androgyny. All of the groups were found to be psychologically androgynous on Bem's Sex-Role Inventory and all groups had above average spatial ability. Musicians, however, surpassed non-musicians on spatial visualization and on Witelson's Dichaptic Stimulation Test.     

Cultural Beliefs About Social Influence Strategies of Mexican Immigrant Women and Their Heterosexual Partners

The present study examined cultural beliefsregarding the use of influence strategies inheterosexual relationships of 40 Mexican immigrantcouples in stable relationships. Although over 75% ofparticipants had completed seven or more years of education,men were more likely to have completed high school thanwomen. Over half the sample (55%) reported familyincomes of $300 or less per week; 23% reported incomes in excess of $400 a week. During a structuredinterview respondents were asked to indicate their levelof agreement on a 4-point Likert scale with 24statements about influence tactics used by women and men in heterosexual relationships. Culturalconsensus analyses revealed a common cultural modelshared by the sample about which strategies men andwomen use to influence their partners. Results suggest that influence strategies are believed similarfor men and women. Direct and indirect strategies areperceived as used by both partners; bilateral strategiesare believed more likely to be used than unilateral strategies. These findings suggest that Mexicanimmigrant women in stable partnerships endorse normsthat support the use of relatively equivalent power inpartner relationships. The use of positive Mexican cultural norms to promote health protectivebehaviors such as condom use and other less risky sexualbehaviors is discussed.     

Gender and age differences in emotion regulation strategies and their relationship to depressive symptoms

We examined differences between men and women, and between young, middle and older age adults in emotion regulation strategies (rumination, suppression, reappraisal, problem-solving, acceptance, social support) and the relationships between these strategies and depressive symptoms. Women were more likely than men to report using several different emotion regulation strategies, and these gender differences were significant even after statistically controlling for gender differences in depressive symptoms. Use of most strategies decreased with age, with two exceptions: (1) use of suppression increased with age for women but not for men and (2) use of acceptance did not decrease with age for women. Use of maladaptive strategies was associated with more depressive symptoms in all age groups and both genders, yet, the use of adaptive strategies generally was not related to lower levels depressive symptoms across groups.     

CODEPENDENCY, LOSS OF SELF, AND POWER

The feminist critique that codependency and loss of self are related to power was tested in a sample of 122 college women and men in committed relationships. Participants completed two codependency measures, a loss of self scale, and three indices of power: perceived power, use of specific influence strategies, and decision making. Among both women and men, codependency and loss of self were positively related to the use of indirect strategies and negatively related to perceived power, and loss of self was negatively related to use of the direct strategies. Among women alone, codependency was also negatively related to use of direct strategies and loss of self negatively related to decision making. These correlational data provide support for a feminist critique of codependency as related to power; however, gender similarities suggest that the relations between power, loss of self, and codependency hold for college men as well as college women.     

Relationship of testosterone to men's family functioning at mid-life: A research note

Sociobiological theory suggests that aggression coupled with altruism is highly adaptive for males in all social systems, including the family, whereas sex-role convergence theory indicates that lower levels of aggression are most adaptive for men, particularly at mid-life. The purpose of this study was to determine the role that testosterone, as a proxy for aggression, plays as an adaptive mechanism in the lives of middle-aged males. The sample used in this study consisted of 37 middle-aged (39–50 years of age) males employed in professional occupations in a midwestern metropolitan area. Testosterone levels were regressed on factors typically found to be related to male satisfaction with family life at mid-life: marital satisfaction, parent-adolescent communication, amount of emotional expressiveness, and androgynous characteristics; recent positive and negative stressors and trait anxiety were statistically controlled. Results of step-wise multiple regression analysis indicated that low levels of testosterone were significantly (R = .34, P < .01) related to enhanced marital and parental relationships and androgynous behaviors; however, emotional expressiveness was significantly related to high levels of testosterone.     

Gender effects in spatial orientation: cognitive profiles and mental strategies

Experimental evidence and meta-analyses offer some support for gender-related differences in visuo-spatial ability. However, few studies addressed this issue in an ecological context and/or in everyday tasks implying spatial abilities, such as geographical orientation. Moreover, the relation of specific strategies and gender is still unclear. In the present investigation, we compared men and women in a newly designed battery of spatial orientation tasks in which landmark, route and survey knowledge were considered. In addition, four visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) tasks were presented. Significant differences favouring men in VSWM tasks were reported, supporting existing evidence. However, men and women did not significantly differ in orientation tasks performance. The patterns of correlation between working memory and spatial orientation tasks indicated that men and women used somewhat different strategies in carrying out the orientation tasks. In particular, active processes seem to play a greater role in females' performance, thus confirming the importance of this variable in interpreting gender effect in VSWM tasks. Altogether, results indicate that gender effects could well result from differences in cognitive strategies and support data indicating that adequate training could reduce or eliminate them. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aggressive behavioral characteristics,hormones, and sexual orientation in men and women

Aggressive behavioral characteristics were assessed in groups of men and women by a self-report instrument, the Aggression Inventory, in which adult males reported more physical and verbal aggression than did females. Furthermore, males had higher scores on measures of impulsiveness and lack of frustration tolerance than did females, while women were more likely to avoid confrontation. In a second study, groups of male and female homosexuals and heterosexuals completed this Aggression Inventory after having blood samples taken to assay resting levels of testosterone (T) and estradiol (E). Groups of subjects within each gender were closely matched in terms of age, education, and vocational interests. Women were matched for the same time in their menstrual cycle (early follicular phase). Among men, homosexuals were indistinguishable from heterosexuals on all measures of aggression. Lesbians did not differ from heterosexual women on any aggression subscale except physical aggression, in which the homosexual women had lower scores. T and E were positively correlated with several indices of aggressive behavioral characteristics in men but were negatively correlated with those same measures in women.