The politics of testosterone

[Skybird]

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0007543

Background

Political elections are dominance competitions. When men win a dominance competition, their testosterone levels rise or remain stable to resist a circadian decline; and when they lose, their testosterone levels fall. However, it is unknown whether this pattern of testosterone change extends beyond interpersonal competitions to the vicarious experience of winning or losing in the context of political elections. Women's testosterone responses to dominance competition outcomes are understudied, and to date, a clear pattern of testosterone changes in response to winning and losing dominance competitions has not emerged.
Methodology/Principal Findings

The present study investigated voters' testosterone responses to the outcome of the 2008 United States Presidential election. 183 participants provided multiple saliva samples before and after the winner was announced on Election Night. The results show that male Barack Obama voters (winners) had stable post-outcome testosterone levels, whereas testosterone levels dropped in male John McCain and Robert Barr voters (losers). There were no significant effects in female voters.
Conclusions/Significance

The findings indicate that male voters exhibit biological responses to the realignment of a country's dominance hierarchy as if they participated in an interpersonal dominance contest.

Funding: This research was supported by departmental funds from Duke University (to KSL) and the University of Michigan (to JCB) and a McClelland Postdoctoral Fellowship (to SJS).

Funny only at first glance. Just imagine what it means that hormone-driven junkeys are not only controlling the election party, but also: stock exchnage markets. International diplomacy. Economic competition. Questions of war and peace. Personal antipathies between international actors. The world is not in such a catastrophic condition for no reason. Somehow we made it to become like that.

Since years I say that man is not really a creature controlled by reason, but by drives and hormones. It is true for women, too, only that their typical sexual hormones have other results ("babble-syndrome" for example , a female fetus produces up to seven times as many talk-movements with chin and mouth like a male fetus). From the way we interact with our friends (and pick them) to the interaction with the other sex in all aspects, from buying a new car to to social menners of behaviour: first we are driven by hormones and naturla drives, most often sexual ones. Only secondly we may have learned to counter and balance that a bit with reason - or not. Freud very correctly said that the layer of paint of civilisation that is covering our animalic heritage on the surface, is very, very thin.