Elsevier

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Volume 49, November 2014, Pages 79-83
Psychoneuroendocrinology

Short Communication
Testosterone responses to competition predict decreased trust ratings of emotionally neutral faces

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.06.011Get rights and content

Summary

A wealth of evidence has linked individual differences in testosterone (T) to social, cognitive, and behavioral processes related to human dominance. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that a single administration of T reduces interpersonal trust in healthy young women. Here, in a sample of men and women (n = 96), we investigated the extent to which endogenous fluctuations in T during a competitive interaction would predict subsequent ratings of trust from emotionally neutral faces. Results indicated that a rise in T predicted a decrease in trust ratings in men, but not women. These findings provide further support for the idea that competition-induced fluctuations in T may serve to modulate ongoing and/or future social behavior.

Introduction

A wealth of research indicates that testosterone (T) has a powerful modulatory effect on social cognitive processes (McCaul and Singer, 2012). Notably, a single administration of T significantly decreases ratings of trustworthiness from facial stimuli (Bos et al., 2010) and trust behavior (Boksem et al., 2013). The relevance of this effect for understanding complex social behaviors, however, remains unclear because T administration has been conducted exclusively in women in these studies. Moreover, despite the importance of using T administration to establish causation, it is critical to understand how fluctuations in endogenous T map onto social cognitive processes. Here, we examined whether endogenous fluctuations in T during a competitive interaction would predict changes in trust ratings made of emotionally neutral faces. To the extent that emotionally neutral male faces are perceived as relatively threatening (Becker et al., 2007), and that exogenous T administration promotes vigilance toward social threat (Terburg et al., 2012), we predicted that a rise in T during competition would predict decreased ratings of trust from emotionally neutral faces.

Section snippets

Participants

Ninety-six participants (45 men and 51 women, Mage = 19.40, SD = 1.21) were recruited from the ongoing Duke Neurogenetics Study. All participants provided written informed consent in accord with the Duke University Medical Center Institutional Review Board. Participants were instructed to refrain from eating any large meals or brushing their teeth at least 2 h prior to the experimental session. All testing took place between 11h00 and 17h00.

Procedure

Participants were first asked to provide ratings of

Baseline and reactive testosterone in men and women

As expected, men had significantly higher T concentrations (M = 80.40 pg/mL, SE = 4.94) compared to women (M = 37.66 pg/mL, SE = 3.72; t93 = 7.02, p < 0.001). In contrast, there were no sex-differences in pre- to post-PSAP changes in T (men: M = 13.5%, SE = 6.77; women: M = 20.1%, SE = 12.3; t89 = −0.46, p = 0.65). A one sample t-test indicated a significant increase in T from pre-PSAP to post-PSAP (M = 16.99%, SE = 7.22; t90 = 2.35, p = 0.021). When the same analysis was performed separately for men and women, the increase in

Discussion

The current study reports the novel finding that acute changes in T in response to a competitive interaction predict decreased ratings of trust in a sex-dependent manner. Specifically, a rise in T during competition predicted a decrease in ratings of trust from emotionally neutral faces in men, but not women. Notably, baseline levels of T did not predict ratings of trust for either men or women.

Previous studies conducted exclusively in women have reported that a single administration of T

Role of the funding sources

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation did not play a role in data collection, analysis, interpretation, or decision to submit this manuscript for publication.

Conflict of interest

None declared.

Acknowledgment

This project was funded by a Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation grant (#175104) to JMC and ARH.

References (18)

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    Further, could it be that these changes in testosterone act as proximate mechanisms mediating life-history strategies similar to what is generally observed for basal testosterone levels? In humans, a growing body of research suggests that contest-related testosterone fluctuations map onto aggressive behavior (Carré et al., 2009, 2013, 2014b), competitive motivation (Mehta and Josephs, 2006; Carré and McCormick, 2008a), physical strength (Cook and Crewther, 2012), and mistrust (Carré et al., 2014a). For example, in a series of studies using the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP)—a well-validated method for measuring reactive aggression (reviewed in Geniole et al., 2017b)—Carré and colleagues (2009, 2013) found that increased testosterone was associated with reactive aggression, or aggression used in retaliation to provocation from a competitor (for a review, see Carré and Olmstead, 2015).

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