Allan Mazur

Testosterone and Dominance in Men

In men, high levels of endogenous testosterone (T) seem to encourage behavior intended to dominate--to enhance ones status over--other people. Sometimes dominant behavior is aggressive, its apparent intent being to inflict harm on another person, but often dominance is expressed nonaggressively. Sometimes dominant behavior takes the form of antisocial behavior, including rebellion against authority and low breaking. Measurement of T at a single point in time, presumably indicative of a mans basal T level, predicts many of these dominant or antisocial behaviors. T not only affects behavior but also responds to it. The act of competing for dominant status affects male T levels in two ways. First, T rises in the face of a challenge, as if it were an anticipatory response to impending competition. Second, after the competition, T rises in winners and declines in losers. Thus, there is a reciprocity between T and dominance behavior, each affecting the other. We contrast a reciprocal model, in which T level is variable, acting as both a cause and effect of behavior, with a basal model, in which T level is assumed to be a persistent trait that influences behavior. An unusual data set on Air Force veterans, in which data were collected four times over a decade, enables us to compare the basal and reciprocal models as explanations for the relationship between T and divorce. We discuss sociological implications of these models.

Testosterone, and winning and losing in human competition

Testosterone and cortisol were measured in six university tennis players across six matches during their varsity season. Testosterone rose just before most matches, and players with the highest prematch testosterone had the most positive improvement in mood before their matches. After matches, mean testosterone rose for winners relative to losers, especially for winners with very positive moods after their victories and who evaluated their own performance highly. Winners with rising testosterone had higher testosterone before their next match, in contrast to losers with falling testosterone, who had lower testosterone before their next match. Cortisol was not related to winning or losing, but it was related to seed (top players having low cortisol), and cortisol generally declined as the season progressed. These results are consistent with a biosocial theory of status.

Testosterone and chess competition

The hormone testosterone (T) has a central role in recent theories about allocation of status ransk during face-to-face competition. It has been methodologically convenient to test the hypothesized T mechanism in physically taxing athletic contests, where results have been supportive, although their generalizability to normal social competition is questionable. Competition among chess players is a step closer to normal social competition because it does not require physical struggle, and it is the arena for tests of the T mechanism which are reported here. We find that winners of chess trounaments show higher T levels than do losers. Also, in certain circumstances, competitors show rises in T before their games, as if in preparation for the contests. These results generally support recent theories about the role of T in the allocation of status ranks

U.S. trends in feminine beauty and overadaptation

Men place more importance on the physical attractiveness of women than women do on the physical attractiveness of men. As a result, womens social opportunities are more affected by their physical beauty than are mens, so that women are under more pressure to conform to an ideal of beauty. Although standards of female beauty are not as arbitrary as is sometimes claimed, they do vary greatly over time and across cultures. Modern institutions of advertising, retailing, and entertainment now produce vivid notions of beauty that change from year to year, placing stress upon women to conform to the body image currently in vogue. The best known of these beauty standards are the “bosom mania” of the 1950s and 1960s and the current trend toward slenderization. As women attempt to adapt to each of these changes, a minority overadapt, sometimes to the point of incapacitation. Among these over‐adaptations have been hysteria, early in the century, which was an exaggeration of the fragile feminine ideal of that time;...

Sex Difference in Testosterone Response to a Video Game Contest

Abstract Testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) were assayed from saliva samples given by young men ( n = 28) and women ( n = 32) before, during, and after competing with a same-sex partner in a video game. The T response to the competition is different in each sex; the C response is the same. Male results confirm prior reports of a precontest rise in testosterone. Male results did not confirm previous findings that, after a contest, the testosterone of winners is higher than that of losers, perhaps because the video game contest produced little mood difference between male winners and losers. Unlike male testosterone, female testosterone generally decreased throughout the experiment. Trends in T and C are parallel in women but not in men. Apparently T works differently in competition between men than between women.

Evidence of unconstrained directional selection for male tallness

Abstract. There are many reports on a positive relationship between tallness and socioeconomic success, and between tallness and health in the human male. Accordingly, tallness is an explanatory variable in many studies on health or behavior. Recently, a positive correlation of tallness with fitness has been reported. However, whether this fitness advantage is the effect of the socioeconomic success of tall men (making them good providers) or of body height itself (tallness being directly associated with some genes, i.e., not requiring the fathers presence, that are favorable for offspring number or survival) remains unclear. The exact type of selection (against short men, favoring men around some above-average height, favoring only very tall men) also remains unclear. Here, for a cohort of military officers, we show that tallness had a indirect effect on male lifetime fitness, independent of socioeconomic success. The crucial factor was not that tall men had more fecund wives, but that tall men more often had a second family. Selection worked strongly in favor of very tall men, not just against short men. Since there were no hints of any evolutionary check on this selection, these findings suggest unconstrained directional selection for tallness in men.

A cross-species comparison of status in small established groups

Seven status characteristics of small established human groups are listed and then compared to the characteristics of a chicken pecking order. Chickens and humans share, at most, three of the seven characteristics. Problems of comparing human and nonhuman behavior are discussed, and a method is suggested which compares behaviors along this series of primates: tree shrew, lemur, squirrel monkey, baboon and macaque, gorilla and chimpanzee, man. The successive primates in the series are increasingly physically similar to man. The seven original status characteristics either appear throughout the primate series or emerge as we move along the series toward man. The cross-species comparison serves as a basis for criticizing several sociological theories of status.

Military Rank Attainment of a West Point Class: Effects of Cadets' Physical Features

Prior research has shown that males are perceived, on the basis of their physical characteristics, as either dominant or submissive individuals, that is, as assertive leaders or as uninfluential followers. In particular, certain facial features, tallness, and an athletic physique are perceived as dominant characteristic. Do such physical features affect social mobility? Do dominant-looking men advance to higher ranks in the military hierarchy than submissive-looking men? The yearbook of the West Point Class of 1950 provides facial portraits of the graduating cadets, allows close approximations of their height and athletic prowess, and gives their military ranks while at the academy; their ultimate ranks appear in West Points Register of Graduates. This paper finds a substantial correlation between facial appearance and military rank while at West Point, as well as several weaker relationships.

A cross-cultural exploration of physiognomic traits of dominance and happiness

Abstract Morphological traits may convey social messages among humans as they do among other species. This study presents data from observers in 11 national/cultural settings who viewed 19 pairs of portrait photographs and selected either more dominant-looking or happier-looking pair members. Significant cross-sample agreement in dominance attributions emerged for eight portrait pairs. Significant cross-sample agreement in happiness attributions occured for nine portrait pairs. Post hoc, among the characteristics of dominant faces were receded hairlines and relatively broad faces. The traits of happier- looking faces frequently included relatively dark eyes and thick lips, with some exceptions.

Global Environmental Change in the News 1987-90 vs 1992-6

Important hazards to the global environment, including climate change, ozone depletion, rainforest destruction and species extinction, were prominently covered by the American mass media during the period 1987-90. As a result, these hazards became important problems on the American agenda of risks, and were soon taken up by other nations, at least until news coverage fell after 1990. This article shows why these particular hazards, which had all been recognized by experts for years, suddenly became important news stories after long periods of inattention. It also speculates why these hazards failed to regain much media attention during the period 1992-6, a time when global warming and other problems intensified, and the White House was occupied by an administration ostensibly sympathetic to environmental concerns.