Authors
Paul J Zak, Robert Kurzban, Sheila Ahmadi, Ronald S Swerdloff, Jang Park, Levan Efremidze, Karen Redwine, Karla Morgan, William Matzner
Publication date
2009/12/16
Journal
PloS one
Volume
4
Issue
12
Pages
e8330
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Description
How do human beings decide when to be selfish or selfless? In this study, we gave testosterone to 25 men to establish its impact on prosocial behaviors in a double-blind within-subjects design. We also confirmed participants' testosterone levels before and after treatment through blood draws. Using the Ultimatum Game from behavioral economics, we find that men with artificially raised T, compared to themselves on placebo, were 27% less generous towards strangers with money they controlled (95% CI placebo: (1.70, 2.72); 95% CI T: (.98, 2.30)). This effect scales with a man's level of total-, free-, and dihydro-testosterone (DHT). Men in the lowest decile of DHT were 560% more generous than men in the highest decile of DHT. We also found that men with elevated testosterone were more likely to use their own money punish those who were ungenerous toward them. Our results continue to hold after controlling for altruism. We conclude that elevated testosterone causes men to behave antisocially.
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