Does a lot of testosterone make you wild, selfish and violent? The hormone was already to blame for social cold – or for missing women on executive floors.

The man. His testicles produce testosterone. A substance that is only held responsible for evil: aggression, unleashed instincts, daredevil, violence.

Even hamsters, stockbrokers, and prisoners have taken part in testosterone studies in the service of science.

How did testosterone become a culprit?

The fact that the hormone makes men male is undisputed: during puberty, the testosterone release stimulates physical changes such as a broken voice. However, the myth of testosterone, which makes it wild, selfish and aggressive, arose from research and poetry. The story of how testosterone got its name already evokes associations: a pharmacologist extracted the hormone from bull testes in 1935. Fromtestis (testicle) and the molecule name sterol and ketone was testosterone.

Indictment: Testosterone makes you aggressive

Animal studies actually show that higher blood testosterone levels are related to aggressive behavior. Under the influence of the hormone, hamsters tend to attack members of their own species who are placed in their cages. Experts argue about whether testosterone affects people in the same way. Research suggests that prisoners with a lot of testosterone in their blood often conflicted with other inmates.

Studies of this kind have consolidated the myth of the male testosterone. Such studies are not very meaningful for closer inspection. Because, as a rule, scientists measure the testosterone concentration of the study participants in the blood. The amount present in the brain, which is crucial for the psyche and behavior, can vary considerably. In addition, cause and effect should not be confused: researchers showed hockey players the video of a game that their team won. As a result, her testosterone level rose. “Higher testosterone levels can be the result of aggression instead of the other way around,” presumes the neurobiologist Christoph Eisenegger from the University of Vienna.

Indictment: Testosterone unleashes the shoots

It is true that high testosterone levels make you want sex. There is no scientific proof that violent attacks are the result. “Despite numerous studies, sexual offenders could not find a clear relationship to testosterone levels,” wrote medical doctor Christian Leiber from the University of Freiburg in a review.

Indictment: Testosterone is frivolous

Studies have shown that in experimental investment games the risk appetite increased with the testosterone level. An investigation in real life seemed to confirm the findings: 17 London stock exchange traders gave saliva samples for a week before and after work and disclosed their daily profits to the researchers. Traders with higher testosterone levels made more profit.

Epidemiologist Robin Haring criticized these results as far from being causal, in his new book The Men’s Lie. He looked for further studies – and found that the results contradict each other. Sometimes testosterone men were particularly willing to take risks, sometimes even particularly risk-averse, sometimes they were very prudent when it came to money. The fact that testosterone has such a bad reputation also has to do with the fact that above all those research results are passed on that confirm what we think we already know.

Indictment: Testosterone makes you selfish

Researchers invited women to a game. One group previously administered tablets with testosterone, the other a placebo. Who got what remained secret. After the game, in which the subjects haggled for money, the researchers asked: Do you think you got the hormone preparation or the placebo? A brilliant question, because it turned out that those who thought they had received testosterone behaved more dominantly and less fairly. In reality, however, the women on testosterone had behaved much fairer than those from the placebo group. The myth of testosterone, which makes you a wild alpha animal, has become so independent.

Why mercy

Testosterone makes you male, but not aggressive. In the meantime, the hormone’s bad reputation has become so firmly anchored in our thinking that we may mainly hear reports that confirm the myth.