Features of the behavior of alpha males
Scientists have uncovered an unusual connection between testosterone and sports cars
Testosterone injections change men's behavior in an unusual way, making them more inclined to buy more status cars, clothes, watches and other symbols of well-being and power, according to an article published in the journal Nature Communications (Nave et al., Single-dose testosterone administration increases men's preference for status goods).
"Animal experiments show that fluctuations in sex hormone levels often reflect changes in the social statuses of males and females. We were interested in whether men would react to artificial changes in testosterone concentration in the same way as male monkeys or rodents," says Hilke Plassmann, a marketing specialist from Sorbonne in Paris (in a press release INSEAD and Wharton professors’ research finds that testosterone increases men's preference for status goods – VM).
In recent years, scientists have begun to actively take an interest in how differences in the work of different body systems affect human behavior and psychology. For example, a few years ago, biologists found out that men are less likely to experience stress due to the fact that their brain cells produce a special enzyme that suppresses this reaction, which is not typical for the nervous system of women.
For a long time, among many ordinary people and scientists, there is an idea that an increase in the level of testosterone or estrogen in the blood of men and women pushes them towards the second "halves" with pronounced male or female traits. Accordingly, a low concentration of hormones has the opposite effect – such people prefer feminized guys and masculine girls.
Plassmann and her colleagues revealed another unusual feature of how sex hormones control the behavior of men, observing how the preferences of two hundred volunteers changed, into whose body they injected small doses of testosterone with a special "patch". In half of the cases, the hormone was replaced with a "dummy", but the participants in the experiments did not know this.
After measuring the testosterone levels in their blood, the scientists invited the students to view photos of several types of clothing, for example, Calvin Klein and Levi's jeans, and choose from them the ones they liked best, and rate them on a ten-point scale. After that, the volunteers had to look through several photos of "expensive" watches and cars and their detailed descriptions, and highlight their defining qualities.
As this simple experiment showed, taking this hormone made men more greedy for branded goods and forced them to choose clothes from Calvin Klein, expensive Swiss watches and sports cars instead of similar products from more "practical" manufacturers. Interestingly, this pattern was also characteristic of the volunteers from the control group – the higher their "natural" testosterone level, the more they liked expensive things.
In turn, an analysis of men's opinions showed that high testosterone levels made them value status more than real strength or physical qualities. They, in turn, were more appreciated by students with an initially low concentration of the hormone in the blood. This suggests that testosterone primarily affects the perception of one's position on the social ladder, and not on the "means of achieving it".
"I have long been struck by how different the attitude of different people to luxury goods is. Some markets always ignore them, while many cities or developing countries are gripped by a real epidemic of sales of such status items. It seems that biology, multiplied by the current social situation, plays a major role in the formation of these differences," concludes Amos Nadler, a colleague of Plassmann.
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