Linking endogenous testosterone levels to selfreports orFrontiers in Neuroscience www.frontiersin.orgJune Volume

Linking endogenous testosterone levels to selfreports orFrontiers in Neuroscience www.frontiersin.orgJune Volume ArticleReimers and DiekhofTestosterone enhances male parochial altruismpersonality scales on aggressive and antisocial behavior (Mazur and Booth, Archer,).Much more recently, researchers have begun to further investigate the effects of testosterone on human behavior PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21532156 in social contexts by applying financial choices paradigms adapted from game theory which include the ultimatum game or the prisoner’s dilemma.These paradigms enable for any direct measure of aggressive or selfish behavior beneath laboratory conditions, which can then be linked to habitual testosterone levels.To date, studies from this context revealed inconsistent results with some suggesting that testosterone promotes prosocial behavior such as improved altruistic punishment (i.e bearing private fees for sanctioning selfish behavior and violations of social norms) or fairness (Burnham, Eisenegger et al Mehta and Beer,), whilst others report a positive association among testosterone and antisocial tendencies, for instance in the type of decreased generosity (Zak et al).Additionally to these conflicting benefits, other researchers did not come across any behavioral effects of testosterone for the duration of social exchange tasks (Zethraeus et al) or observed both, antiand prosocial influences, in choice contexts with or with no the possibility of financial betrayal, respectively (Boksem et al).Critical to note are the methodological variations involving the above talked about research.Whilst some examined the effects of endogenous testosterone levels (Burnham, Mehta and Beer,) others administered testosterone (Zak et al Zethraeus et al Eisenegger et al Boksem et al).Furthermore, some studies investigated effects in each sexes (Mehta and Beer,), whereas others only tested males (Zak et al) or females (Eisenegger et al Boksem et al).A single study even tested postmenopausal ladies (Zethraeus et al).A different possible explanation for these controversial findings might be that the assumption of a direct link among testosterone and aggressive or prosocial behavior is oversimplifying a rather complicated relationship.Taking into account additional variables may possibly assist to acquire a superior understanding of your mechanism by which testosterone shapes human behavior.As an example, group membership and social closeness have been shown to influence altruistic punishment in that ingroup members are protected much more frequently than outgroup members even if this implies personal costs (e.g Bernhard et al Baumgartner et al Goette et al).Preferential treatment of ingroup members and elevated hostility toward the outgroup, even at one’s personal cost, are common human behaviors and happen to be referred to as parochial altruism (Choi and Bowles, Bowles, Garc and van den Bergh,).A second essential aspect is intergroup competition.Many studies have shown that the context of an intergroup competitors alters altruistic behavior in comparison with an individual setting.Rebers and Koopmans assigned subjects to groups and conducted a version on the nperson prisoner’s dilemma that integrated an option to punish defectors in the personal group.They observed much more altruistic punishment when the Alprenolol Technical Information various groups were competing with each other than in the course of a context with no intergroup competitors.Other research examined the impact of intergroup competitors making use of true social groups.For example, Van Vugt et al. identified that male universitystudents cooperated much more with.