Commercially available testosterone immunoassays – a widely used method for quantifying hormone concentrations - may have unstable validity, particularly in samples with intrinsically low levels of hormones (Prasad et al. 2019; Welker et al., 2017). The recent meta-analysis of the dual-hormone hypothesis (Dekkers et al., 2019) indicates that studies testing the hypothesis had relatively low power and excess significance, or too many significant results given the estimated meta-effect and the corresponding sample sizes of the studies analyzed. In the subsequent sections, we build on these recent papers to discuss potential explanations for the heterogeneous results across studies and we offer recommendations for future research aimed at testing and extending the dual-hormone hypothesis in light of these explanations. Moreover, new evidence suggests that this dual-hormone interaction is related to the actual attainment of higher status in real-world hierarchies.
The challenge hypothesis was originally developed to explain the relationship between testosterone and aggression in seasonally breeding birds (Wingfield et al., 1990). The leaders with more responsibility were most comfortable with the idea that some groups were superior to others. The paper also examined whether study subjects were accepting of inequalities in status and power. They wanted to know whether leaders had a greater or lesser ability to empathize. The researchers surmised that the students who supervised the block building and who chose to continue the puzzle competition were acting like leaders.
Upon examining individual categories of behaviors, this meta-analysis found that the evidence in support of the dual-hormone hypothesis was stronger for explicit indices of status (e.g., actual status rankings within hierarchies) compared to specific categories of behaviors (e.g. aggression, psychopathy). The dual-hormone hypothesis sprang from these inconsistent associations between testosterone and social behavior (Mehta & Josephs, 2010; Mehta & Prasad, 2015; Sarkar, Mehta, & Josephs, 2018). The challenge hypothesis was later adapted to explain testosterone’s association with status-seeking behaviors more broadly in primates (including humans; Archer,2006; Muller & Wrangham, 2004). The challenge hypothesis makes specific predictions about the association between testosterone and status-seeking behaviors, but the findings linking testosterone to these behaviors are inconsistent. We suggest that basal testosterone could play a role in acquiring leadership positions through dominant and authoritarian behavior.
Although a significant body of research has examined the effects of exogenously administered testosterone or cortisol on social behavior, to date no study has reported the behavioral effects of simultaneous pharmacological manipulation of both hormones. The dual-hormone profiles of high testosterone levels coupled with lower or higher cortisol levels may be related to status-seeking behavior via different mechanisms. Although the connection between specific behaviors and perceptions of social status were clear in some dual-hormone studies (e.g. ratings of "leader-like" were correlated with observed behaviors such as assertiveness, confidence, and decisiveness in Mehta & Josephs, 2010), in other studies it remains unclear whether the behavioral outcome measure was relevant to status. Seven judges rated video recordings of these social interactions on dominant leadership behaviors, defined as an assertive and self-assured behavioral style (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009). The statistical prediction of this hypothesis is a negative testosterone × cortisol interaction term, when higher scores on the outcome measure indicate increases in behaviors related to the pursuit of high status. Thus, previous studies that tested the challenge hypothesis may have found weak or null results because they did not consider cortisol as a potential moderator of testosterone’s association with behaviors linked to status. Testosterone, which plays a role in enabling leadership skills, can be adversely affected by high levels of stress hormone cortisol.
LH then travels to your gonads and stimulates the production and release of testosterone. Your hypothalamus releases gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), which triggers your pituitary gland to release luteinizing hormone (LH). Which means testosterone is far more than libido or virility. Male brains have testosterone receptor sites in most brain areas. It drives a lot of processes (interdependently with other hormones) for our mood, drive, libido, vitality, virility, strength, energy, and so forth. It’s the major sex hormone for a man, synthesized out of cholesterol. Now first off, I feel we need to sketch the context around testosterone.
Within a competitive setting, a prior victory or defeat against an opponent is an objective indicator of one’s status compared to that opponent. However, these factors seem unlikely to explain reversals of the dual-hormone pattern that have been observed in some work. Prior work in personality psychology has shown that implicit and explicit forms of a given construct (e.g., trait dominance) may interactively determine behavior (reviewed in Slatcher et al., 2011). Similar effects have been reported for the causal effects of testosterone treatment on feelings of pleasure derived from an aggression paradigm (Geniole et al., 2019). However, there was limited power for detecting statistically significant differences in their moderator analyses given the small number studies, thereby making interpretation of these results difficult.
In laissez-faire or free-rein leadership, decision-making is passed on to the subordinates. Under the autocratic leadership style, all decision-making powers are centralized in the leader, as with dictators. A field in which leadership style has gained attention is that of military science, which expresses a holistic and integrated view of leadership, including how a leader's physical presence determines how others perceive that leader. A leadership style is a leader's way of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people.