Word: behaviorisms
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...study authors hypothesized that participants taking testosterone would engage in riskier, more aggressive behavior - that is, offer their fellow participant a lesser amount of money. What happened instead was that the women who received testosterone made significantly more equitable offers than those who received a placebo, offering their partners an average of 3.9 money units out of 10, vs. 3.4 money units...
...give a lizard testosterone, it becomes more aggressive. But we are not lizards. Our social interactions are nuanced and complex," explains lead author Michael Naef of the Experimental Economics Lab at Royal Holloway College at the University of London. "In many human interactions, it is social rather than antisocial behavior that secures status...
...study's authors also found that women who believed they had received a testosterone supplement - whether they had or not - made much greedier and more self-serving offers, suggesting that the assumption of testosterone's influence became an enabler of antisocial behavior. "It's not the hormone but the myth surrounding the hormone that induced aggressiveness," Naef suggests. (Read "Is a Female Track Star a Man? No Simple Answer...
...research may even undermine the concept of "'roid rage" and therefore have legal consequences, says Naef. In the U.S., some convicted criminals in violent-crime cases have managed to finagle less severe sentences by arguing that their violent behavior was due in part to their use of testosterone as an anabolic steroid - whence the term 'roid rage originates. "There is no direct link between testosterone and aggression," Naef says...
Adam Goodie, a psychologist at the University of Georgia in Athens who studies decision-making, told Naturenews.com that the research has profound implications for neuroeconomics, the study of how biology influences markets, by showing that "not only does biology affect economic behavior - so does belief." But John Coates, a former Wall Street trader and researcher at Cambridge University, warns against extrapolating too much from the study. Coates' own measurements of testosterone levels in the saliva of male traders found a link between higher levels of the hormone and risky behavior. He says there is a "dose-response curve" for testosterone...