Testosterone Makes Men Ignore Consensus

Higher testosterone makes men do what they believe is right rather than what others believe is right ARTICLE OPEN Testosterone eliminates strategic prosocial behavior through impacting choice consistency in healthy males Humans are strategically more prosocial when their actions are being watched by others than when they act alone. Using a psychopharmacogenetic approach, we investigated the endocrinological and computational mechanisms of such audience-driven prosociality. One hundred ninety-two male participants received either a single dose of testosterone (150 mg) or a placebo and performed a prosocial and self-benefiting reinforcement learning task. Crucially, the task was performed either in private or when being watched. Rival theories suggest that the hormone might either diminish or strengthen audience-dependent prosociality. We show that exogenous testosterone facilitates strategic, i.e. feigned, prosociality and thus decrease-decreases submission to audience expectations. We next performed reinforcement-learning-diffusion computational modeling to elucidate which latent aspects of decision-making testosterone acted on. The modeling revealed that testosterone compared to placebo did not decrease reinforcement learning per se. Rather, when being watched, the hormone altered the degree to which the learned information on choice value translated to action selection. Taken together, our study provides evidence of testosterone’s effects on implicit reward processing, through which it counteracts conformity and deceptive reputation strategies.

A screenshot of a post by William Meijer presents a claim that higher testosterone makes men follow what they personally believe is right instead of conforming to others’ beliefs. Below it, a scientific article headline appears to support the claim, creating an ironic juxtaposition between a confident social-media interpretation and research about testosterone reducing strategic prosocial behavior and conformity. The meme is used as a reaction to someone proudly refusing consensus or social pressure. EN: A screenshot of a post by William Meijer presents a claim that higher testosterone makes men follow what they personally believe is right instead of conforming to others’ beliefs. Below it, a scientific article headline appears to support the claim, creating an ironic juxtaposition between a confident social-media interpretation and research about testosterone reducing strategic prosocial behavior and conformity. The meme is used as a reaction to someone proudly refusing consensus or social pressure.

• @antichirst / 20227 2025-08-04