Effects of Victory and Defeat on Testosterone Levels

Adaptive Aggression and Dominance

• Adaptive aggression refers to the use of aggressive behavior to achieve social status and dominance.
• Dominance is a key concept in social hierarchy, where individuals with higher dominance tend to have higher social status and influence.

Organizational-Activational Hypothesis

• The organizational-activational hypothesis suggests that testosterone influences the development of neural pathways involved in aggression and dominance behaviors during critical periods of development.

Baseline Testosterone and Aggression

• Research has shown a weak association between baseline testosterone levels and aggressive behavior.
• This suggests that testosterone is not a direct predictor of aggressive behavior, but rather an influential factor in specific contexts.

Biosocial Model of Status

• The biosocial model of status explains the relationship between testosterone and dominance behaviors by proposing that testosterone influences status-seeking behaviors, which in turn affect social status and dominance.
• The model focuses on the dynamic interaction between social status, testosterone, and behavior.

Testosterone Administration and Competitive Decisions

• Administering testosterone to women with high trait dominance increases their competitive decisions in competitive tasks.
• This suggests that testosterone influences competitive behavior, particularly in individuals with high dominance traits.

Winner-Loser Effect on Testosterone Changes

• A meta-analysis by Geniole et al. (2017) found that winning increases testosterone levels, while losing decreases them, in a phenomenon known as the winner-loser effect.

Testosterone Changes in Response to Competition

• Stanton et al. (2009) studied testosterone changes in response to competition and found that testosterone levels increase after winning and decrease after losing.

Mehta & Josephs' (2006) Study

• In the study, participants had to make a decision that would either benefit themselves or others.
• The results showed that high-testosterone individuals were more likely to make selfish decisions, supporting the hypothesis that testosterone promotes self-interest.

Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC) Study

• The aim of the study was to investigate the role of the OFC in testosterone-induced aggression.
• The results showed that testosterone administration disrupts functional connectivity between the amygdala and OFC, leading to increased aggressive behavior.

Testosterone and Aggressive Behavior

• Testosterone levels are positively correlated with aggressive behavior in men, particularly after experiencing a victory.
• Trait dominance influences the association between testosterone and aggressive behavior in men, with high-dominance individuals exhibiting more aggressive behavior.

Trait Dominance and Hostility

• Trait dominance influences the feelings of hostility in men after being exposed to a social stressor.

Self-Construal and Testosterone Changes

• Self-construal plays a role in the association between competition outcome and testosterone changes, with individuals high in self-construal exhibiting greater testosterone increases after winning.

Testosterone and Amygdala Reactivity

• Administering testosterone to young men increases amygdala reactivity in response to angry faces.

Reducing Aggression

• Denson (2015) proposed psychological interventions to reduce provocation, anger, and aggression, including self-regulation training and cognitive reappraisal.