Abstract
A contribution to a special issue on Hormones and Human Competition.Social competition is associated with marked emotional, behavioral and hormonal responses, including changes in testosterone levels. The strength and direction of these responses is often modulated by levels of other hormones (e.g. cortisol) and depends on psychological factors – classically, the objective outcome of a competition (win vs. loss) but also, hypothetically, the closeness of that outcome (e.g. decisive victory vs. close victory). We manipulated these two aspects of a social contest among male participants (N=166), to investigate how testosterone and affect fluctuated as a function of clear vs. narrow wins and clear vs. narrow losses. We found that losing a competition by a small margin (a narrow loss) was experienced as more pleasant than a clear loss. Among individuals with higher levels of basal cortisol, winning the competition by a narrow margin was associated with a decrease in testosterone levels. These findings are discussed within the framework of the status instability hypothesis and the growing literature on how situational and physiological factors modulate testosterone reactivity to social contests.
Highlights
Competition is the prevailing mean for determining status within both human and non-human social hierarchies (Magee and Galinsky, 2008; Sapolsky, 2004)
Given testosterone responses depend on basal cortisol levels (Edwards and Casto, 2015; Zilioli and Watson, 2012), we explored the extent to which basal cortisol interacted with competition outcome and closeness to predict testosterone changes
We saw that narrowly winning a competition decreased testosterone levels among individuals with higher basal cortisol levels
Summary
Competition is the prevailing mean for determining status within both human and non-human social hierarchies (Magee and Galinsky, 2008; Sapolsky, 2004). According to the Challenge Hypothesis (Archer, 2006), testosterone levels rise during periods when competitive and aggressive behaviors are common, and drop during periods of social stability. These fluctuations depend further on the outcome of social contests, such that winners tend to experience an increase in testosterone compared to losers. This observation has been labelled the “winner–loser effect” and is central to the Biosocial Model of Status
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