- In mice and monkeys, the loser in aggressive encounters shows reduced androgen levels, so testosterone levels maybe a result, rather than a cause of behavior
- In men, testosterone levels rise in winners and fall in losers after competitions

Experience can affect testosterone levels

- Women treated with testosterone reportedly spend more time staring into the eyes of threatening faces, which is a socially dominant behavior
- Testosterone levels should be associated with behaviors that confer or protect the individual's social status. These behaviors may sometimes, but not always, involve overt aggression.
- While surgical or "chemical" castration may reduce violence in some sex offenders, the main effect is a reduction in sexual motivation more than a direct effect on aggression. Many ethical issues raised by this to the rehab of sex offenders

Dominance as a confounding variable

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

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

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

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