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Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
- ThomPete 11y agoNew dating service idea. Testosterone tester.
- notThatBad 11y agoWomen kind of have one of these. They're able to identify males with high testosterone by looking at them and being near them. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/mens-smell-testosterone-attractive-to-women-study_n_3110182.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/mens-smell-testoste... http://healthmad.com/mens-health/women-can-smell-testosterone/ http://healthmad.com/mens-health/women-can-smell-testosteron...
- coralreef 11y agoMakes sense. Those who are hungry must hunt. Those whose appetites are satiated can relax.
- orthoganol 11y agoAnecdotally, it's the opposite for me. When I'm in a relationship my sex drive is a lot higher, and since sex becomes more part of daily life, sex starts coloring things a lot more almost unconsciously, looking at other women more sexually, thinking about it more etc. If I'm single I usually just focus on me and my projects and sex kind of fades away into the background. However, multi year, really long relationships I could see your testosterone and sex drive drop off, as the excitement of it (neurotransmitter-ly speaking) wears off.
- minimaxir 11y ago> To test this hypothesis, 122 male Harvard Business School students filled out a questionnaire and collected one saliva sample (from which testosterone level was measured). Results revealed that men in committed, romantic relationships had 21% lower testosterone levels than men not involved in such relationships. Since I can't read the paper without credentials, let's say half the participants indicated they are in a relationship. Won't a sample size of 61 potentially result in confidence interval issues?
- dietrichepp 11y agoThis is the kind of question that you get when you read the abstract but not the article itself.
- Pinwheeler 11y agoLet's not forget: Correlation != Causation. Does being in a relationship lower your testosterone? Or are women(assuming the men in study were heterosexual, not sure on that, either) more interested in entering into LTRs with men with lower testosterone levels? Edit: Also, was this controlled for age?
- mindcruzer 11y agoMy guess is that it's the former. In general, women are attracted to masculinity (assuming heterosexuality), a factor in which testosterone plays a large part.
- patal 11y agoLet them be attracted. Serves reproduction all right. Hence your evolutionary argument. But the study is about long-term relationships. I'd think social factors, cultural habits, and reflection play an important part there. It's not clear to me, that it's necessarily the former.
- michas 11y agoIs this study controled for age? Testosterone decreases with age, and the very definition of Long Term Relationship assumes that men in LTR are older than singles :)
- FrankenPC 11y agoThis is one variation of a particular line of research. Sexual orientation vs testosterone would be another good one. Getting periodic testosterone readings before long term relationships and then after would be even better to develop a trend. Locating an actual mechanism that modulates testosterone based on instinct/emotions would be even better.
- seccess 11y agoOr, are men with naturally lower testosterone levels more likely to stay in a single LTR?
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- jlarocco 11y agoWhy is it every time a scientific paper is posted to HN the first few comments point out the tired "correlation != causation" or some other catch phrase? It's a peer reviewed paper, by actual researchers and scientists. I'm 99.99% sure they are aware that correlation isn't causation. Furthermore, nowhere in the abstract does it draw any conclusions at all, it merely gives the results. The only people drawing conclusions are you and the other people posting tired cliches.
- jacques_chester 11y ago> If they don't this isn't science. It's marketing. Reporting observations doesn't make them unscientific. Science doesn't leap from nothing to perfectly teased-out causality. Incomplete results are still useful, as they attract attention to possibilities that require further explanation. Put another way: science isn't a waterfall project.
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- sv_muppets_ 11y agoEmasculated by fem_tards?
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- maj0rhn 11y agoThe paper's flaw is that it doesn't look at other potential confounders. Here is a simple, but important one: Is there a difference between the amount of sleep that partnered and unpartnered people get? (My experience is lots less sleep when partnered.) It's important because testosterone production depends on pulsatile secretions of other hormones from the pituitary gland that occur during sleep. So, getting less sleep means lower testosterone levels. Take heed, start-up slaves! :-)
- mekoka 11y agoI take it that you read the paper. Can you give us a tldr that has a bit more than this abstract?
- ashark 11y agoLess sleep, definitely, and maybe less time working out—relationships take up lots of time, even if you're not with someone who's especially needy. Very easy to let one's workout routine slip to avoid cutting in to other solo activities too badly. Even worse if you add kids to the mix. Less time hittin' the weights means lower T. (obviously plenty of couples work out together and still get some exercise in that way, but even then either or both of time and intensity could drop compared with when single)
- agumonkey 11y agoAnecdotal question: there's an area, around occipital and cerebellum where romantic memories or grief activate pain, and arousal become impossible. As if having someone there forbids the sexual system to function.
- sstjohn 11y agoLet me guess: they were all straight.
- mkr-hn 11y agoThe added stress of homophobia might affect the results. I wonder what a study of testosterone levels in different areas and orientations would show.
- btilly 11y agoA lot of comments are missing a basic fact of how science works. In science we have a theory, make predictions, then stress test them. This is one study examining a theory which we have various lines of evidence for. It is not supposed to prove the theory - just test one prediction. It is not supposed to be the end of research on this topic. It is not supposed to be final. Criticizing it for any of those things is a demonstration that you do not understand how science is supposed to function. For some of the background on this particular theory I highly recommend reading https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/200904/the-testosterone-curse-part-1 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/2009... and the follow-up https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/200905/the-testosterone-curse-part-2 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/2009.... (If you want to get to the point, it is probably better to start with the follow-up.)
- cristianpascu 11y agoGood luck with testing a psychology theory.
- btilly 11y agoThe fundamental problem with testing psychology was explained by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It is that no theory has (yet) proven so compelling that everyone can agree on it. And that is the case because the subject is intrinsically complex. That said, despite its limitations and current failures, we do not have a better intellectual process than science to study such questions.
- sdalfakj 11y ago> Criticizing it for any of those things is a demonstration that you do not understand how science is supposed to function. Good luck criticizing science when you forbade yourself to criticize pretty much all study shortcomings using those all-encompassing guidelines that all point to a single conclusion, i.e. "Don't criticize me, I'm just a prediction bro".
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- Oblouk 11y agoI see no problem with the Wording of this study. Firstly the study is not trying to go so far as to determine the reasons for such results. That is it is not statinng the reason behind why ltrs have lower testosterone. Instead it is seeking to determine "[...] whether being in such a relationship (rather than being married) is the meaningful predictor of male testosterone levels." Emphasis on meaningful predictor.
- discardorama 11y ago(Sample of 1). I think my personal experience would seem to indicate so. I've been in a committed relationship for 2 years. But sometimes the wife travels, and I hang out with my single friends, going to bars, flirting with chicks, etc. And I find that I'm a lot more 'affectionate' after this episode. Could it be that I miss the wife so much? I have noticed a difference between when I do the bar scene, and when I don't.
- spacko 11y agoI second this ... I actually even encourage my gf to flirt with other men - it keeps you mentally fresh and vital
- jvanderbot 11y agoI have access to the article. This statement is key: "By increasing libido, higher T may encourage mateseeking behavior." Of course testosterone drops when you find a mate. You don't have to fight for one any more. They go on to show that it further decreases when you have children. Since virility is affected by T levels, it's a good hypothesis that having kids is likely a trigger to reduce the risk-seeking behavior in males after children are born. It's kind of a "no duh" result in that light, and they sought to find evidence that supports this hypothesis. However, they are clear to state that they cannot address causation directly. "High-T men may be less likely to enter stable, romantic relationships. Additionally, affiliative interactions with a partner may decrease T levels, in turn reducing mating effort. We also expect T variation within the group of paired men to be consistent with variation in mating effort, although we are not able to test this with our data set. For example, it may be that paired-male T levels will be highest during times of sexual activity with a partner (as suggested in Hirschenhauser et al., 2002) or that variation in the strength of the pair bond might explain variance in T levels among paired individuals. These are all topics for which longitudinal data would be of great help in teasing apart cause and effect."
- jacques_chester 11y agoThe nice thing about "no duh" results is that, every once in a while, something unexpected happens. And then, if you're lucky, a new glimpse of the world happens.
- jvanderbot 11y agoScience is built on layers and layers of dull data collection (like this one). But yah, a no-duh result that doesn't come through is fun.
- ISL 11y agoA good way to check for whether or not a new piece of information is interesting is to ask, "Would I be surprised if the opposite happened?" Would you be surprised if the test subjects' testosterone was observed to be independent of relationship status?
- spacko 11y agoIt's odd that "low Testosterone levels" (as in "lower T levels compared to ...") is automatically considered to be something bad (by male readers). High T-levels are connected with higher susceptibility to inflammation f.x.
- fierycatnet 11y agoLow testosterone is pretty bad... fatigue, mental fog, low sex drive, weak muscles, ED, etc. I have low test and it's not something that I consider normal. The difference between low and high T is night and day. It greatly affects the well being.
- spacko 11y agoso all the husbands in the world have weak muscles and mental fog ... ? :D that's why I wrote my comment precisely as I did. the article is not about low T levels but comparatively low T levels (comparing to single guys)
- fierycatnet 11y agoNah, I wasn't making that link but I see what you meant now in your post.
- beachstartup 11y ago> so all the husbands in the world have weak muscles and mental fog ... ? :D uh, yes, a lot of them do. it's just seen as 'normal' to be a lackadaisical limp-wristed fatass "man" these days.
- aeze 11y agoLower, not low.
- beachstartup 11y agothat's because it is bad. men need normal levels of testosterone. anyone who tells you otherwise has another agenda they're pushing (take a wild guess).