Testosterone and Dominance in Humans: Behavioral and Brain Mechanisms

Abstract

Most people think that the hormone testosterone especially triggers aggression and antisocial behavior in humans. Mistakenly, the male sex steroid principally underlies each and every aspect of human social behavior but especially social dominance behavior. Testosterone by itself or by way of its metabolite, estradiol, the female sex steroid, is essential in the action of the social peptides oxytocin and vasopressin and regulates the turnover of the social monoamines, dopamine and serotonin. The hormone also has many other actions in the brain; thus the social brain's main chemical, without exaggeration, is testosterone. Here we review a line of findings with placebo-controlled testosterone administration in the field of social neuroscience in which various techniques are used to investigate social dominance and trustworthiness behaviors. These findings give insights into how and by what biobehavioral mechanisms testosterone acts in humans to motivate them to establish and maintain a dominant status.