Testosterone levels and our ability to woo women.

To contact us Click HERE

Way back, when I was something like 20 and testosterone pretty much dripped off me much as it does most 20-year-old males, I would sometimes go to a local store that sold overstocks of printed sports team shirts and what-not. Of all the trips I made to the store I remember buying two items. One was a red shirt that had “Red Onion” printed on it in big white letters – the letters were made of just the right type of stuff and positioned in just the right manner that they’d rub my nipples raw if I jogged in the shirt. The other item was a hoodie with “Wayne State” printed on the front.

I never found out what “Red Onion” was supposed to be about.  While I’d no idea what Wayne State was when I bought the hoodie, I’d eventually find out it was a university in Michigan.

Well, it seems the good folks at Wayne State do more than just supply overstocks to clearance stores. They’ve recently published a study that links testosterone with men’s ability to "woo" potential mates.

According to Richard Slatcher, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology in WSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a resident of Birmingham, Mich., the effects of testosterone on dominance behaviors were especially pronounced among men who reported having a high need for social dominance. In his study, "Testosterone and Self-Reported Dominance Interact to Influence Human Mating Behavior," published online Feb. 28 in the journal, Social Psychological and Personality Science, these men showed a strong positive association between their own testosterone and their own dominance behaviors and, most surprisingly, a strong negative association between their own testosterone and their opponents’ dominance behaviors. In other words, men both high in testosterone and who reported a high need for social dominance appeared to be able somehow suppress their competitors’ ability to attract potential mates. However, when men reported low need for dominance, there was no association between testosterone and dominance behaviors-either their own or their competitors’.