Testosterone can skew one’s judgement, creating the impression that decisions are best taken alone even in situations that call for collaboration, according to a study released yesterday.
In a set of experiments, scientists led by Nicholas Wright at the University of London showed that women given a dose of testosterone become less inclined to act in concert even when it was clearly in their interest to do so.
Finding the right balance between working together and going solo — and knowing when to do one or the other — is an essential life skill.
In some circumstances, joining forces with others is the best way to achieve a desired result: That’s why lions and hyenas hunt in packs, and why humans cooperate on the playing field, in the laboratory or in battle.
However, sometimes decisive individual action is needed to break free of group-think, or to come out ahead of the game.
To a significant extent, our ability to navigate between these two extremes is acquired through learning and experience, but some of these impulses are hardwired too.
Earlier research, for example, on the biological underpinnings of group decision-making revealed that a naturally occurring hormone, oxytocin, promotes the urge to work side-by-side.
At the same time, it was well established that testosterone boosted risk-taking, anti-social behavior and the kind of aggressiveness that fuels contact sports and trading floors on Wall Street.
However, whether the alpha male hormone par excellence — also present at much lower levels in females — also makes individuals shun cooperation and become more egocentric was not known.
To find out, Wright and his colleagues carried out a series of tests over two days, spaced a week apart, with 17 pairs of female volunteers who did not know each other.
On one of the two days, both volunteers in each pair were given a testosterone supplement, while on the other day they ingested a look-alike placebo.
The researchers chose females because in men an additional dose has the effect of suppressing production of the hormone by the body.
During the experiment, both women in each pairing sat in the same room, but in front of separate computer screens.
The women were shown the same two images, and asked to pick the one in which a hard-to-discern high-contrast pattern appeared. If their individual choices agreed, the exercise ended there.
However, if they diverged, the women were told to consult with each other and reach a joint decision.
Pairs of women who had taken the dummy pill were significantly more successful in coming up with the right answer than those pairs who had been given the hormone, the researchers found.
“The higher levels of testosterone were associated with individuals behaving egocentrically and deciding in favor of their own selection over their partner’s,” even when that choice was wrong, Wright said in a statement.
“Too much testosterone can help blind us to other people’s views,” he said. “This can be very significant when we are talking about a dominant individual trying to assert his or her opinion in, say, a jury.”
The broader conclusion is that hormonal levels can disrupt our attempts to work together, he said.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
RSS