Abstract
There is increasing interest in the role played by testosterone in economic decision-making and social cognition. However, despite the growing body of findings in this field of research, no empirical study to date has tested whether testosterone modulates decision-making when an asymmetrically dominated decoy option is introduced in a choice set. Within a choice set that comprises two options, an asymmetrically dominated decoy option is a third option that, when introduced in the choice set, is much worse than one of the existing options, but comparable to the other existing option. Introduction of a decoy option leads to a preference toward the dominating option (i.e., decoy effect). Healthy male participants (n = 63) received a single-dose of 150 mg testosterone gel in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subjects design. At 180 min post-administration, participants took part in a decision-making task to elicit decoy effect. Results showed that participants in the testosterone group made less consistent choices and more target choices (i.e., decoy effect) than participants in the placebo group. These findings are interpreted in light of the dual-process theory and are in line with existing evidence suggesting that testosterone promotes more intuitive and automatic judgments in human decision-making.
Highlights
Testosterone is a sex steroid that, in addition to being involved in reproductive physiology and morphology, plays an important role in various psychological processes, including decision-making (Eisenegger et al, 2011)
We found that testosterone administration reduced consistency in decision-making and increased the selection of dominating options
These findings are in agreement with previous work on the context-dependent nature of testosterone effects on social decision-making (Boksem et al, 2013; Dreher et al, 2016)
Summary
Testosterone is a sex steroid that, in addition to being involved in reproductive physiology and morphology, plays an important role in various psychological processes, including decision-making (Eisenegger et al, 2011). Recent evidence has reconciled these contrasting findings by invoking the moderating role played by contextual influences (Boksem et al, 2013; Dreher et al, 2016). The realization that testosterone influences decisions in a context-dependent fashion is relatively new, the broader idea that human choices are fine-tuned to the context in which options are presented has long been known (Kahneman, 2011). Two recent studies highlight the flexible role of testosterone in decision making (Boksem et al, 2013; Dreher et al, 2016).
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