Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Keywords
testosterone, in-groups, hormones, male behavior, challenge hypothesis
Journal/Book/Conference Title Title
Evolutionary Psychology
Volume
8
Issue
2
First Page
173
Last Page
188
Abstract
The current study investigated young men's testosterone level changes as a result of interacting with other men. Male participants (n = 84) were led to believe that a group they would be interacting with was either similar to them or not similar. The interaction was then one of two types: the other group members were inclusive, or the others excluded the participant during the group interaction. Participants provided saliva samples before and after the interaction. Results suggest that interacting with highly similar men increases circulating testosterone whereas interacting with highly dissimilar men actually lowers testosterone. The nature of the interaction was less important than similarity. Considering that testosterone surges may relate to attempts to gain status within one's group, the results are interpreted as consistent with viewing hormonal changes as a mechanism to alter current behavioral propensities in ways that are likely to be most adaptive. Exploratory analyses suggest a methodologically interesting suppressor effect of the self-report items in predicting testosterone changes.
Department
Department of Psychology
Original Publication Date
2010
DOI of published version
10.1177/147470491000800203
Repository
UNI ScholarWorks, University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library
Copyright
©2010 M. Catherine DeSoto, Robert T. Hitlan, Rory-Sean S. Deol, and Derrick McAdams. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. (CC BY-NC 3.0).
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Date Digital
2010
Language
EN
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
DeSoto, M. Catherine; Hitlan, Robert T.; Deol, Rory-Sean S.; and McAdams, Derrick, "Testosterone Fluctuations in Young Men: The Difference Between Interacting With Like and Not-Like Others" (2010). Faculty Publications. 1.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/psy_facpub/1
Comments
First published in Evolutionary Psychology, v.8 n.2 (2010), by Sage Journals. DOI: 10.1177/147470491000800203