What's Wrong? Don't You Trust Me?

Written by Administrator

 We've all "heard" that testosterone is partly responsible for making men aggressive. So, what happens when you take a "socially naive" woman and plug her full of testosterone? 'Not quite what you'd expect . . .

I ran across just such a study the other day, and was a bit surprised myself. The authors used 24 female subjects, and wanted to see if giving them testosterone would reduce trustworthiness. This, in fact, was what they found. The addition of the hormone caused a significant reduction in trust in the women, at least among those who had been more trusting to begin with.

However, in a game scenario, while the trusting behaviors went down, the "fairness" behaviors increased! The authors speculated that testosterone "seems to motivate for rational decision-making, social scrutiny, and cleverness."(p. 9993) So, women with higher levels of testosterone make better negotiators?

"So, what's the point?" one may ask. 'Just this. Whether we like it or not, we are much more a product of our biology than we could ever have imagined. Ignoring these influences or trying to deny their importance can't make them go away. If we are to survive as a civilized species, we must accept and embrace those parts of us.

Now, if you can't agree with me on this, would it be too much for me to ask you to just "trust me?"

Peace