Testosterone, Power And

Across many studies in humans, two functional relationships between testosterone and power consistently emerge. First, high levels of testosterone prime individuals to pursue dominance (priming relationship). Second, victories and defeats in dominance contests and other outcomes of dominance interactions drive differential changes in testosterone levels that in turn prime and shape future behavior (reciprocal relationship). Priming and reciprocal relationships between power and testosterone have been principally documented in men; our understanding of the relationships between testosterone and power in women is less complete.

Baseline levels of testosterone prime individuals to pursue dominance. The best evidence for this phenomenon is derived from studies that measure the actual behavior of individuals high or low in testosterone. This line of research shows that those with high testosterone levels engage in behavioral pursuit of dominance and status. For instance, lawyers with high testosterone levels are more likely to be trial lawyers, who visibly argue in front of judge and jury, than they are to work in other capacities. Also, prisoners with high testosterone are more likely to have a history of violent crime and to have other prisoners rate their behavior as tougher. Boys with high testosterone are judged as more dominant and as possessing leadership qualities. These and many other findings document that, in general, high levels of testosterone prime individuals to pursue dominance and status in socially acceptable ways, but that in some cases they can also lead to aggression, antisocial behavior, and sometimes violent crime.

It is notable that the priming relationship between testosterone and dominance only emerges reliably when behavioral measures of dominance are employed. However, when questionnaire measures of dispositional power, dominance, or aggression are used, researchers rarely find any relationship between individuals' questionnaire scores and their testosterone levels. Several reviews of the testosterone literature have therefore concluded that self-report measures of power and dominance are of little value when studying the relationship between testosterone and power.

When dominance dispositions are assessed indirectly, small but consistent correlations between individual differences in dominance motivation and testosterone have been found. One method that has been used with success for this purpose is the measurement of individuals' implicit power motive (nPower), which is defined as a recurrent need to have impact on others. nPower is assessed by content-coding imaginative stories that research participants write in response to picture cues. Although nPower does not correlate with questionnaire measures of dominance, it is positively [Page 663]correlated with testosterone, suggesting that high baseline levels of testosterone motivate one to pursue dominance and manifest themselves in aspects of an individual's personality. Interestingly, nPower also positively predicts many of the same dominance behaviors that high levels of testosterone are associated with (e.g., entering influential occupations, spousal abuse, drug abuse, risk taking, and sexual promiscuity). Such findings suggest that the implicit power motive represents the psychological manifestation of individual differences in testosterone levels.

Consistent with the notion of a reciprocal relationship between testosterone and dominance, testosterone also changes as a function of winning or losing dominance contests. For example, it has been found that winners of chess tournaments have elevated testosterone levels, while individuals whose favorite sports teams lose have depressed levels of testosterone. However, contest outcome is not the only variable that predicts changes in testosterone. Indirect measures of power motivation (but again not questionnaire measures of power motivation) often moderate the effect that dominance contest outcomes have on testosterone changes. For instance, there is evidence that changes in testosterone level due to victory and defeat are consistently observed in high-power men, but not in low-power men. There is also some evidence that baseline levels of testosterone as a marker of individuals' need for power predict how those individuals respond hormonally and behaviorally to contest outcomes.

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