Testosterone- the Justice hormone...

[makattak]

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006657.html

Testosterone Makes Men Less Generous In Game
Another nail in the Blank Slate coffin where men and women supposedly get socialized into their different preferences and behaviors. Researcher Karen Redwine at Whittier College and Paul Zak at Claremont University found that a testosterone cream made men less generous. DHT (dihydrotestosterone) had an even more dramatic effect.

The testosterone cream worked. The next day, twice as much of the potent sex hormone coursed through the veins of volunteers, on average.

The students then played a simple economic game with another participant via a computer. One volunteer is tasked with splitting $10 with another volunteer in any way he likes. The other volunteer either accepts the offer or rejects it as unfair, in which case no one gets any money. Each volunteer played this game in both roles, on and off the testosterone gel.

Overall, the testosterone cream caused a 27 per cent reduction in the generosity of the offers, from averages of $2.15 to $1.57, Redwine and Zak found.

Testosterone also made men more inclined to punish people who made unfair offers. Testosterone is therefore the enforcer of justice. One wonders what is the net effect of combining a smelly room with testosterone. War or an efficient system of justice?

An experiment I'd like to see: Do finasteride and dutasteride make men basically less selfish? These drugs block the conversion of testosterone into DHT. Also, do these drugs cause a long term decrease on the ability to do spatial reasoning? Or perhaps testosterone causes some male cognitive features and DHT causes others. So perhaps the drugs cause increases in some male tendencies and decreases in others.

Seems to explain my anecdotal experience that on average women are more concerned with mercy but men are more concerned with justice.

Nota bene: I did not say ALL women ever care about is mercy and ALL men ever care about is justice. There are not only counter-examples to the above statement (women who care more about justice and men who care more about mercy) men and women care about MORE than jutice or mercy, just ON AVERAGE they tend to care about those respectively.

[Jocassee]

Testosterone also made men more inclined to punish people who made unfair offers. Testosterone is therefore the enforcer of justice.

Ummm...does this seem illogical to anyone else? I don't remember the name of the fallacy offhand...

[makattak]

Ummm...does this seem illogical to anyone else? I don't remember the name of the fallacy offhand...

Actually, it doesn't. (At least to my mind.)

It didn't say the men made UNFAIR offers with more testosterone. It said they made less generous offers. I'd think of it as negotiation and pushing your advantage harder.

However, if the other side thinks you've gone too far, they are also more likely to choose punishment. (i.e. no one gets anything).

It's not contradictory- fairness doesn't mean we both get the same amount. Fairness means you don't abuse your advantageous position.

[vaskidmark]

The students then played a simple economic game with another participant via a computer. One volunteer is tasked with splitting $10 with another volunteer in any way he likes. The other volunteer either accepts the offer or rejects it as unfair, in which case no one gets any money.

So I'm supposed to split $10 with you any way I want to.  And then you get to declare that my splitting $10 with you any way I wanted to was "fair" or "not fair"?

As long as you are getting any piece of the $10 it seems to me to be "fair".

Or were the creators of this little game setting up an experiment in determining how to influence the amount of generosity I exhibited by giving you any piece of the $10?

Testosterone or not, I'll find the lowest amount that will result in me keeping the rest of the $10 and then nibble down on your part again.  It wasn't my $10 to begin with, but I'll profit just as you will if we agree to split someone else's money.  What I see is an experiment that can inform politicians of where the whining begins from the victimicrats about not getting "their fair share" of wealth redistribution.

stay safe.

skidmark

[MicroBalrog]

Testosterone or not, I'll find the lowest amount that will result in me keeping the rest of the $10 and then nibble down on your part again

In the experiment, do you get to negotiate the deal with the other guy?

[makattak]

In the experiment, do you get to negotiate the deal with the other guy?

Having experience with similar experiments, I will guess it is a single offer and then an accept or reject choice.

[MechAg94]

The other volunteer either accepts the offer or rejects it as unfair, in which case no one gets any money.

It sounds like you have to make an offer that the other guy will accept or no one gets anything, so there is incentive to be reasonably generous. 


You make the connection to justice, but you have to cross over revenge on the way there.  Justice may be a way of enforcing society's rules, but it also provides an alternative to revenge and vigilantism.