Men acting hormonal

Apparently the sales of testosterone supplements are on the rise—from 1.3 million four years ago to 2.3 million now. I guess men think it will make them more vigorous or something. I don’t know about that, but many studies have shown that when men take testosterone they make impulsive—and often faulty—decisions. Even without an extra boost of testosterone, men tend to be more confident than women about their intelligence and judgments. They believe their decisions and solutions are better than they actually are and are less likely to see flaws in their reasoning.  One reason that testosterone leads to overconfidence is that it inhibits activity in the region of the brain (orbitofrontal cortex) that’s responsible for self-evaluation, decision-making, and impulse control. Those are not areas that you want to inhibit.

To study men’s tendency to be over-confident compared to women, college students taking final exams rated their confidence about each answer on a five-point scale, with one for a “pure guess” and five for “very certain.” Men and women both gave themselves high scores when they answered correctly. But when they’d answered incorrectly, women tended to be hesitant, but men weren’t. Most checked “Certain’ or “Very certain” even when their answers were wrong.

Also, compared with women, men tend to think they’re much better than average. They’re also less willing to collaborate. In one study, in which some women took testosterone and others took a placebo, the women who took testosterone were more likely to ignore the input of others and relied more heavily on their own judgment, even when they were wrong.  

In another study, 140 male traders were given either testosterone or a placebo. In an asset trading simulation, men with boosted testosterone significantly over-priced assets compared with men who got the placebo. They also were slower to incorporate data about falling values into their trading decisions.

Apparently, Donald Trump has had his testosterone measured--not normally part of a routine checkup, partly because nobody knows what an ideal testosterone level might be. The range is very wide. Trump’s is mid-range. Perhaps he takes supplements. I hope not.

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