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Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: The True Adonis on September 28, 2006, 08:10:50 AM
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Testosterone
Another biological trait with widespread ramifications for human personality and behavior is testosterone level, or T. Most notably, T has an effect on several sexual traits; for instance T levels correspond with penis size, muscle growth, and sexual energy, and high amounts encourage earlier puberty. All of these things in turn have powerful psychological ramifications, some better known than others. (Girls seem to adjust better when they go through puberty later, while boys adjust better if they go through puberty earlier.)
T has a variety of other effects, however. T is associated with energy, dominance, persistence, combativeness, and focused attention, and this is manifested in a variety of ways:
In college fraternities, those in which the average T is low are more friendly, pleasant, and well-behaved, and high T fraternities are more wild, unruly, and rambunctious.
There is a positive relationship between T and delinquency.
T is responsible for masculinizing the human face - thus just as g is slightly visible to the naked eye via head size, T is apparent by the size of a person's jaw, cheekbones, and eyebrows.
Boys who are high in T tend to be moodier and less securely attached than their compatriots.
High T levels were associated with lower pitch among males, but not females.
Low T women reported more violence when drinking alcohol than high T women did.
T makes a person less prone to smile.
T gives a person a larger "personal space bubble," meaning that high T individuals prefer to stand or sit farther away from people they are talking to
Members of the upper class tend to be lower on T than members of the lower class.
T relates to visuo-spatial ability, making a person better at driving or reading maps.
T has a well known association with aggression; Among prison inmates, those high in testosterone had committed more violent crimes and fewer property crimes than those low in testosterone, and they violated more prison rules. Among homicides, high T inmates were more likely to have known their victims and used gratuitous violence on them. Even individuals with high T and no history of aggression tend to be found in ?aggressive? jobs and professions at the higher levels. (Also, animals who are the most violent show same pattern; for instance Pit bulls and other ?violent? dogs show the highest levels of T ever recorded for their weight.)
T relates to E. (Curiously, Estrogen has the same effect - women score higher on Extroversion after being given estrogen.) T also has an inverse relationship with A and probably also with C, and N, which helps explain why women differ on these levels from men, since women have about 90% less T.
T decreases with age and with marriage (which may explain why A and C rise with age).
Higher levels of T are associated with lower levels of VB.
Different ethnic groups also have different average T; it has been found that blacks have more testosterone than whites (by around 10%), who in turn have more testosterone than East Asians.
Perhaps most telling, however, was this quote taken from http://www.gsu.edu/~psyjmd/NSF96-99.html:
In a study conducted outside the laboratory, low and high testosterone subjects carried beepers that signaled them five to six times a day for four days. When signaled, they recorded what they had been doing, thinking, and feeling. Coders and computer text analysis programs indicated a restless energy in the reports of high testosterone subjects. High testosterone subjects were more aroused and tense than low testosterone subjects. They spent more time thinking, especially about concrete problems in the immediate present. They wanted to get things done and felt frustrated when they could not. They mentioned friends more than family or lovers. Five terms characterized high testosterone subjects: restless, thinking, about action, right now, likely with friends.
Knowing all this allows us to predict human behavior in a variety of ways. For instance, it's well known that more crime is committed over the summer months, and T reaches a peak somewhere between July and November (the lowest T levels are between February and June). This is a large window, of course, but younger men - who are most likely to be criminal - have earlier seasonal peaks in their T level. The information on testosterone also suggests a variety of other possibilities - that men who went through puberty sooner would be more agressive, that upper class males are likely to have higher-pitched voices, and so forth.
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Testosterone
Another biological trait with widespread ramifications for human personality and behavior is testosterone level, or T. Most notably, T has an effect on several sexual traits; for instance T levels correspond with penis size, muscle growth, and sexual energy, and high amounts encourage earlier puberty. All of these things in turn have powerful psychological ramifications, some better known than others. (Girls seem to adjust better when they go through puberty later, while boys adjust better if they go through puberty earlier.)
T has a variety of other effects, however. T is associated with energy, dominance, persistence, combativeness, and focused attention, and this is manifested in a variety of ways:
In college fraternities, those in which the average T is low are more friendly, pleasant, and well-behaved, and high T fraternities are more wild, unruly, and rambunctious.
There is a positive relationship between T and delinquency.
T is responsible for masculinizing the human face - thus just as g is slightly visible to the naked eye via head size, T is apparent by the size of a person's jaw, cheekbones, and eyebrows.
Boys who are high in T tend to be moodier and less securely attached than their compatriots.
High T levels were associated with lower pitch among males, but not females.
Low T women reported more violence when drinking alcohol than high T women did.
T makes a person less prone to smile.
T gives a person a larger "personal space bubble," meaning that high T individuals prefer to stand or sit farther away from people they are talking to
Members of the upper class tend to be lower on T than members of the lower class.
T relates to visuo-spatial ability, making a person better at driving or reading maps.
T has a well known association with aggression; Among prison inmates, those high in testosterone had committed more violent crimes and fewer property crimes than those low in testosterone, and they violated more prison rules. Among homicides, high T inmates were more likely to have known their victims and used gratuitous violence on them. Even individuals with high T and no history of aggression tend to be found in ?aggressive? jobs and professions at the higher levels. (Also, animals who are the most violent show same pattern; for instance Pit bulls and other ?violent? dogs show the highest levels of T ever recorded for their weight.)
T relates to E. (Curiously, Estrogen has the same effect - women score higher on Extroversion after being given estrogen.) T also has an inverse relationship with A and probably also with C, and N, which helps explain why women differ on these levels from men, since women have about 90% less T.
T decreases with age and with marriage (which may explain why A and C rise with age).
Higher levels of T are associated with lower levels of VB.
Different ethnic groups also have different average T; it has been found that blacks have more testosterone than whites (by around 10%), who in turn have more testosterone than East Asians.
Perhaps most telling, however, was this quote taken from http://www.gsu.edu/~psyjmd/NSF96-99.html:
In a study conducted outside the laboratory, low and high testosterone subjects carried beepers that signaled them five to six times a day for four days. When signaled, they recorded what they had been doing, thinking, and feeling. Coders and computer text analysis programs indicated a restless energy in the reports of high testosterone subjects. High testosterone subjects were more aroused and tense than low testosterone subjects. They spent more time thinking, especially about concrete problems in the immediate present. They wanted to get things done and felt frustrated when they could not. They mentioned friends more than family or lovers. Five terms characterized high testosterone subjects: restless, thinking, about action, right now, likely with friends.
Knowing all this allows us to predict human behavior in a variety of ways. For instance, it's well known that more crime is committed over the summer months, and T reaches a peak somewhere between July and November (the lowest T levels are between February and June). This is a large window, of course, but younger men - who are most likely to be criminal - have earlier seasonal peaks in their T level. The information on testosterone also suggests a variety of other possibilities - that men who went through puberty sooner would be more agressive, that upper class males are likely to have higher-pitched voices, and so forth.
Hmmm, a recent reliable, journal quality study suggests that if the baby girl gest too much T secreted in the womb it may become gay, too little for a male baby-fetus to be gay. Hard to know for sure with humans, but it seems early hormane levels in the moms womb may play a definite role in human sexuality