less clear-cut compared to animals
- Treating adult volunteers with extra testosterone does not increase their aggression; young men going through puberty experience a sudden increase in testosterone don't show correlated increasing aggressive behavior
- Some studies have shown a positive correlation between testosterone and level of hostility 
- Nonaggresive tendencies in males are related to satisfaction in family functioning and with lower levels of serum testerone

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Androgens are hormones that contribute to growth and reproduction in both men and women
- Androgen and aggression in animals
- Androgen and aggression in humans
- Some complicated variables in the relationship between androgens and aggression

Androgens seem to increase aggression

Breedlove, S. & Watson, N. (2017). Behavioral neuroscience, eighth edition. Oxford University Press.

Behavioral Neuroscience 8th Edition

- At sexual maturity, when levels of androgen increase, internal aggression markedly increases in many species. 
- In spotted hyenas, the females are more aggressive than the males, and the more androgen the female is exposed to before birth, the more aggressive she will be growing up
- In more typical mammals, decreasing circulating androgen by castration usually reduces intermale aggressive behavior profoundly. Treating castrated males with testerone restores fighting behavior

Androgen and aggression in animals

Androgen and aggression in humans

- Experience can affect testosterone levels
- Dominance as a confounding variable

Learn Before

Related