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Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank

Endogenous testosterone promotes behaviours intended to enhance social dominance. However, recent research suggests that testosterone enhances strategic social behaviour rather than dominance seeking behaviour. This possibility has not been tested in a population whose members are known to vary in s...

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Autores principales: Inoue, Yukako, Takahashi, Taiki, Burriss, Robert P., Arai, Sakura, Hasegawa, Toshikazu, Yamagishi, Toshio, Kiyonari, Toko
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5509644/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28706184
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05603-7
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author Inoue, Yukako
Takahashi, Taiki
Burriss, Robert P.
Arai, Sakura
Hasegawa, Toshikazu
Yamagishi, Toshio
Kiyonari, Toko
author_facet Inoue, Yukako
Takahashi, Taiki
Burriss, Robert P.
Arai, Sakura
Hasegawa, Toshikazu
Yamagishi, Toshio
Kiyonari, Toko
author_sort Inoue, Yukako
collection PubMed
description Endogenous testosterone promotes behaviours intended to enhance social dominance. However, recent research suggests that testosterone enhances strategic social behaviour rather than dominance seeking behaviour. This possibility has not been tested in a population whose members are known to vary in social status. Here, we explored the relationship between pre-existing social status and salivary testosterone level among members of a rugby team at a Japanese university, where a strong seniority norm maintains hierarchical relationships. Participants played a series of one-shot Ultimatum Games (UG) both as proposer and responder. Opponents were anonymised but of known seniority. We analysed participants’ acquiescence (how much more they offered beyond the lowest offer they would accept). The results showed that, among the most senior participants, higher testosterone was associated with lower acquiescence. Conversely, higher testosterone among the lower-status participants was associated with higher acquiescence. Our results suggest that testosterone may enhance socially dominant behaviour among high-status persons, but strategic submission to seniority among lower-status persons.
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spelling pubmed-55096442017-07-14 Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank Inoue, Yukako Takahashi, Taiki Burriss, Robert P. Arai, Sakura Hasegawa, Toshikazu Yamagishi, Toshio Kiyonari, Toko Sci Rep Article Endogenous testosterone promotes behaviours intended to enhance social dominance. However, recent research suggests that testosterone enhances strategic social behaviour rather than dominance seeking behaviour. This possibility has not been tested in a population whose members are known to vary in social status. Here, we explored the relationship between pre-existing social status and salivary testosterone level among members of a rugby team at a Japanese university, where a strong seniority norm maintains hierarchical relationships. Participants played a series of one-shot Ultimatum Games (UG) both as proposer and responder. Opponents were anonymised but of known seniority. We analysed participants’ acquiescence (how much more they offered beyond the lowest offer they would accept). The results showed that, among the most senior participants, higher testosterone was associated with lower acquiescence. Conversely, higher testosterone among the lower-status participants was associated with higher acquiescence. Our results suggest that testosterone may enhance socially dominant behaviour among high-status persons, but strategic submission to seniority among lower-status persons. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5509644/ /pubmed/28706184 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05603-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Inoue, Yukako
Takahashi, Taiki
Burriss, Robert P.
Arai, Sakura
Hasegawa, Toshikazu
Yamagishi, Toshio
Kiyonari, Toko
Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank
title Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank
title_full Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank
title_fullStr Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank
title_full_unstemmed Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank
title_short Testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the Ultimatum Game depending on players’ social rank
title_sort testosterone promotes either dominance or submissiveness in the ultimatum game depending on players’ social rank
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5509644/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28706184
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05603-7
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