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It's possible (and indeed seems very likely) that testosterone and behaviour both affect each other.
by sweeneyrod 7y ago
It's possible (and indeed seems very likely) that testosterone and behaviour both affect each other.
- belorn 7y agoIndeed testosterone and behavior both affect each other. I have however several reasons why I am skeptical when people focus exclusively on testosterone as effecting behavior. One larger reason, as given by a professor in neuroendocrinology, is that people and researchers alike tend to view behavior as soft science and hormones as hard science. There has been (and still are) a lot of resistance to the idea that behavior alone can cause biological changes in the body. The second reason is that again and again, when people try to test a correlation between a hormone and behavior by supraphysiological doses, the predicted behavior does not occur. The third reason is that the general role of sex hormones is to regulate the body in favor of reproductive success. The generally accepted theory to explain why testosterone goes up by having voted on the winning team, or by winning a competition, or by winning a physical fight, is that the individual perceive themselves as having gained social rank and thus the body adjust testosterone levels accordingly. Any behavior that does not have a clear link to reproductive success is unlikely to be regulated by a sex hormone.