Playing in front of a wildly cheering hometown crowd, the Canadian ice hockey team whizzed around the ice with more speed and sizzle than usual, scoring goal after goal and winning the game. And it wasn't just that night, either. The high-energy performance of the all-star team, hailing from northern Ontario, always peaked during home games, suggesting a home-field advantage.
Hoping to learn their secret, psychologists Cameron Muir and Justin Carre of Brock University in Ontario studied the team over a season, measuring testosterone levels in saliva before and after each game. As they expected, the increase in status following a win always resulted in a rise. But the surprise came in measurements prior to the games: Whenever the competition was on home turf, testosterone increased ahead of time, suggesting the hormone provided impetus for defending one's territory. "Just as a dog defends its yard, these players are encouraged to defend home ice," Carre said.
The Brock scientists found that testosterone ebb and flow tracked emotional states: Self-confidence increased for home games, and, according to player reports, slid back down when players were away. The bottom line: Testosterone changes are directly related to personality, mood, and aggression—and not just in sports.
For men and women alike, sex hormones (including testosterone, produced by the testes, and estrogen, from the ovaries) are power players in myriad human abilities and behaviors. Language, cognition, libido, and health all fluctuate as hormone levels change. Yet the impact is nuanced and often counterintuitive. Testosterone revs aggression in status-hungry men, but has little effect in more laid-back souls. Estrogen has long been thought to keep memory sharp before menopause—but for women who start taking estrogen supplements years after going through menopause, the result may be memory problems instead. Finally, just as sex hormones influence behavior, changing situations often modulate the hormones. "The causal arrow between hormones and behavior points in both directions," says University of Nevada anthropologist Peter Gray. The subject is complex and often confusing. But given the common manipulation of sex hormones through prescription drugs and supplements, unraveling their hidden forces has never been more critical.
Testosterone Warriors:
Why one man's triumph is another man's torment
A humble priest renowned for his wisdom, Peter Morrone wanted nothing more than to live out his days in the hermetic monastery near his home in Italy. But his dream came crashing down when he was tapped to succeed Pope Nicholas IV in 1294. As the new Pope Celestine V, Morrone lacked the assertiveness of his predecessor and soon became a pawn of King Charles II. Unsuited for the job, he abdicated the papacy after four short months. But the next pope, Boniface VIII, so feared Celestine's popularity that he hunted him down and threw him in jail where, 10 months later, he died.
According to Robert Josephs, a social endocrinologist at the University of Texas, Celestine's reaction to the lofty status of pope can be seen through the lens of testosterone: Naturally low levels of testosterone could explain his shrinking-violet personality and his failure to rise to the challenge when his status demanded it most. High levels of testosterone, meanwhile, might explain why Boniface went to such extremes to put Celestine in his place.
When Josephs arrived on the endocrine scene in the late 1990s, the research connecting sex hormones and human behavior was contradictory. A strong connection had been shown in many animal species. But human experiments found no consistent connection and experts theorized that our developed prefrontal cortex simply overrode messages the sex hormones sent to the midbrain.
Josephs soon demonstrated that humans are hardly exempt from the passions of other animals—those passions are just more complex. As with Celestine and Boniface, testosterone plays out differently depending upon whether an individual is driven by status or prefers a more modest leadership role. Men motivated by the quest for power have higher baseline levels of testosterone—and the more they feel threatened, the higher their testosterone (and their aggression).
One study, for instance, tracks testosterone after loss of a game. Baseline testosterone drops, it turns out, only in those who don't much care about dominance or whether they win or lose. These less-competitive players start out with modest testosterone levels and after a loss, their levels fall. But in those with high-baseline testosterone—typically of competitive mindset—the levels soar. "High-T men react to a loss as if in the throes of testosterone addiction—the more testosterone climbs, the more testosterone they crave, and they can get more only by challenging the winner and playing again," Josephs explains.
He found the rule applied not just to competition in sports or games, but also to competition for mates. In one study, Josephs paired male college students and sent them into a room with an attractive female confederate. Each was to try to woo her, doing whatever it took. Students with high testosterone routinely slammed the other man, making fun, putting him down, refusing to laugh at his jokes.
Tags:
behavior,
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hormone levels,
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memory problems,
sex hormones,
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winning the game
