Reactive aggression tracks within‐participant changes in women's salivary testosterone

Abstract

The relation between testosterone and aggression has been relatively well documented in men, but it is less well understood in women. Here we assessed the relationship between salivary testosterone and reactive aggression (i.e., rejection rate for unfair offers) in the Ultimatum Game. Forty naturally cycling women were tested twice, once in the late follicular phase (around ovulation) and once during the luteal phase. Ovulation was determined using urine test strips measuring luteinizing hormone levels. Salivary samples were assayed for testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, and cortisol at both test sessions. There was no association with the cycle, but multilevel modeling revealed a significant within-participant association between testosterone and rejection rate for extremely unfair offers (i.e., high reactive aggression), indicating that women showed greater reactive aggression when their testosterone levels were higher. Additionally, we found that women with relatively high individual concentrations of testosterone were more likely to reject extremely unfair offers than women with relatively low concentrations of testosterone. This study is the first to demonstrate that women react more aggressively in response to provocation when their testosterone level is high than when their testosterone is low, suggesting that testosterone plays an important role in the regulation of women's aggressive behavior following social provocation.

Aggression in Women: Behavior, Brain and Hormones

“…Despite these mean differences, the authors found positive correlations between testosterone and self-reported aggression in both women and men. Thus, although aggression and testosterone may be lower in women than men, many studies observed the same positive relationships between testosterone and aggression in women as they do in men (e.g., Prasad et al, 2017 ; Probst et al, 2018 ). A study of 12 women in a double-blind placebo-controlled testosterone administration study suggests that testosterone may increase aggression because it reduces sensitivity to punishment and increases reward sensitivity (van Honk et al, 2004 ).…”

Short-term effect of ovariohysterectomy on urine serotonin, cortisol, testosterone and progesterone in bitches

“…It is known that in bitches, the ovaries are sites of testosterone production [ 14 , 21 ]. Recently, in a study on women, the authors suggested that an aggressive response to provocation was related to high levels of testosterone in saliva [ 22 ]. Plasma progesterone levels have been reported to be lower in neutered than intact dogs of both genders [ 8 ].…”

The Relationship between Androgen Receptor Gene Polymorphism, Aggression and Social Status in Young Men and Women

“…Studies about these relationships are scarce in the field. However, there is evidence about the effect of testosterone on aggressive behavior in women [ 27 , 28 ] (for a negative effect, see [ 58 ]) and about the use of indirect forms of aggression to compete for status [ 18 ], justifying our expectations. This lack of relationships could arise for the same reasons in women as for men, evidencing the need to apply a more complex design including personality traits as mediators and experimental manipulations to investigate causal relationships between the use of aggression and changes in social status.…”

“…For example, testosterone facilitates aggression in animals [ 23 , 24 , 25 ], and, since the 1980s, it has been considered a social hormone that influences behavior in situations linked to the maintenance or enhancement of social status [ 26 ]. However, the principal evidence of a direct relationship between aggression and testosterone came from studies in men [ 27 ], being less investigated in women (see [ 27 , 28 ]). The studies about genetic sensitivity to testosterone have opened a new research avenue.…”