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Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels

A person’s ability to form relationships and seek and attain social status affects their chances of survival. We study how anxious and avoidant-attachment styles and subsequent winning or losing affects the testosterone (T) levels of team members playing two status contests. The first is a managemen...

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Autores principales: Verbeke, Willem J., Belschak, Frank, Ein-Dor, Tsachi, Bagozzi, Richard P., Schippers, Michaéla
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6056749/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30065672
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01051
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author Verbeke, Willem J.
Belschak, Frank
Ein-Dor, Tsachi
Bagozzi, Richard P.
Schippers, Michaéla
author_facet Verbeke, Willem J.
Belschak, Frank
Ein-Dor, Tsachi
Bagozzi, Richard P.
Schippers, Michaéla
author_sort Verbeke, Willem J.
collection PubMed
description A person’s ability to form relationships and seek and attain social status affects their chances of survival. We study how anxious and avoidant-attachment styles and subsequent winning or losing affects the testosterone (T) levels of team members playing two status contests. The first is a management game played by teams striving to earn the most profits. Winners and losers emerge due to the cognitive endeavor of the players, which provokes intense status dynamics. Avoidant-attached winners do not show higher T levels whereas anxious-attached winners do. The second is an economic game which is rigged and favors some teams to become richer than others; teams have the option though to trade with each other and reduce the self-perpetuating rich-poor dynamics embedded in the game. Besides attachment styles, we here also explore how authentic pride as a self-conscious emotion affects team members’ T levels as players trade with others to create more fairness. As in the first status contest, players’ T levels are not significantly affected by their avoidant attachment style, neither as a main effect nor in interaction with winning or losing the game. However, similar to the first game, players’ anxious attachment style affects their T levels: anxious-attached players generate significantly higher T levels when winning the game, but only when experiencing high authentic pride during the game. In short, the moderating effects of attachment style on winners’ T levels are partly replicated in both status games which allows us to better understand the functioning of working models of attachment styles during and after status contests and gives us a better understanding of working models of attachment styles in general.
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spelling pubmed-60567492018-07-31 Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels Verbeke, Willem J. Belschak, Frank Ein-Dor, Tsachi Bagozzi, Richard P. Schippers, Michaéla Front Psychol Psychology A person’s ability to form relationships and seek and attain social status affects their chances of survival. We study how anxious and avoidant-attachment styles and subsequent winning or losing affects the testosterone (T) levels of team members playing two status contests. The first is a management game played by teams striving to earn the most profits. Winners and losers emerge due to the cognitive endeavor of the players, which provokes intense status dynamics. Avoidant-attached winners do not show higher T levels whereas anxious-attached winners do. The second is an economic game which is rigged and favors some teams to become richer than others; teams have the option though to trade with each other and reduce the self-perpetuating rich-poor dynamics embedded in the game. Besides attachment styles, we here also explore how authentic pride as a self-conscious emotion affects team members’ T levels as players trade with others to create more fairness. As in the first status contest, players’ T levels are not significantly affected by their avoidant attachment style, neither as a main effect nor in interaction with winning or losing the game. However, similar to the first game, players’ anxious attachment style affects their T levels: anxious-attached players generate significantly higher T levels when winning the game, but only when experiencing high authentic pride during the game. In short, the moderating effects of attachment style on winners’ T levels are partly replicated in both status games which allows us to better understand the functioning of working models of attachment styles during and after status contests and gives us a better understanding of working models of attachment styles in general. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-07-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6056749/ /pubmed/30065672 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01051 Text en Copyright © 2018 Verbeke, Belschak, Ein-Dor, Bagozzi and Schippers. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Verbeke, Willem J.
Belschak, Frank
Ein-Dor, Tsachi
Bagozzi, Richard P.
Schippers, Michaéla
Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels
title Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels
title_full Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels
title_fullStr Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels
title_full_unstemmed Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels
title_short Exploring the Effect of Attachment Styles and Winning or Losing a Status Contest on Testosterone Levels
title_sort exploring the effect of attachment styles and winning or losing a status contest on testosterone levels
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6056749/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30065672
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01051
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