Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13129483

by dataker • 11 years ago

73 38 11 years ago

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

ThomPete• 11 years ago

New dating service idea. Testosterone tester.

notThatBad• 11 years ago

Women kind of have one of these. They're able to identify males with high testosterone by looking at them and being near them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/mens-smell-testoste...

http://healthmad.com/mens-health/women-can-smell-testosteron...

coralreef• 11 years ago

Makes sense. Those who are hungry must hunt. Those whose appetites are satiated can relax.

orthoganol• 11 years ago

Anecdotally, it's the opposite for me. When I'm in a relationship my sex drive is a lot higher, and since sex becomes more part of daily life, sex starts coloring things a lot more almost unconsciously, looking at other women more sexually, thinking about it more etc. If I'm single I usually just focus on me and my projects and sex kind of fades away into the background.

However, multi year, really long relationships I could see your testosterone and sex drive drop off, as the excitement of it (neurotransmitter-ly speaking) wears off.

minimaxir• 11 years ago

To test this hypothesis, 122 male Harvard Business School students filled out a questionnaire and collected one saliva sample (from which testosterone level was measured). Results revealed that men in committed, romantic relationships had 21% lower testosterone levels than men not involved in such relationships.

Since I can't read the paper without credentials, let's say half the participants indicated they are in a relationship. Won't a sample size of 61 potentially result in confidence interval issues?

dietrichepp• 11 years ago

This is the kind of question that you get when you read the abstract but not the article itself.

Pinwheeler2• 11 years ago

Let's not forget: Correlation != Causation.

Does being in a relationship lower your testosterone?

Or are women(assuming the men in study were heterosexual, not sure on that, either) more interested in entering into LTRs with men with lower testosterone levels?

Edit: Also, was this controlled for age?

mindcruzer• 11 years ago

My guess is that it's the former. In general, women are attracted to masculinity (assuming heterosexuality), a factor in which testosterone plays a large part.

patal• 11 years ago

Let them be attracted. Serves reproduction all right. Hence your evolutionary argument. But the study is about long-term relationships. I'd think social factors, cultural habits, and reflection play an important part there. It's not clear to me, that it's necessarily the former.

FrankenPC• 11 years ago

This is one variation of a particular line of research. Sexual orientation vs testosterone would be another good one. Getting periodic testosterone readings before long term relationships and then after would be even better to develop a trend. Locating an actual mechanism that modulates testosterone based on instinct/emotions would be even better.

seccess• 11 years ago

Or, are men with naturally lower testosterone levels more likely to stay in a single LTR?

Pinwheeler2• 11 years ago

ooh, also a possibility!

maj0rhn• 11 years ago

The paper's flaw is that it doesn't look at other potential confounders. Here is a simple, but important one: Is there a difference between the amount of sleep that partnered and unpartnered people get? (My experience is lots less sleep when partnered.) It's important because testosterone production depends on pulsatile secretions of other hormones from the pituitary gland that occur during sleep. So, getting less sleep means lower testosterone levels. Take heed, start-up slaves! :-)

mekoka• 11 years ago

I take it that you read the paper. Can you give us a tldr that has a bit more than this abstract?

ashark• 11 years ago

Less sleep, definitely, and maybe less time working out—relationships take up lots of time, even if you're not with someone who's especially needy. Very easy to let one's workout routine slip to avoid cutting in to other solo activities too badly. Even worse if you add kids to the mix.

Less time hittin' the weights means lower T.

(obviously plenty of couples work out together and still get some exercise in that way, but even then either or both of time and intensity could drop compared with when single)

agumonkey• 11 years ago

Anecdotal question: there's an area, around occipital and cerebellum where romantic memories or grief activate pain, and arousal become impossible. As if having someone there forbids the sexual system to function.

sstjohn• 11 years ago

Let me guess: they were all straight.

mkr-hn• 11 years ago

The added stress of homophobia might affect the results. I wonder what a study of testosterone levels in different areas and orientations would show.

btilly3• 11 years ago

A lot of comments are missing a basic fact of how science works. In science we have a theory, make predictions, then stress test them.

This is one study examining a theory which we have various lines of evidence for. It is not supposed to prove the theory - just test one prediction. It is not supposed to be the end of research on this topic. It is not supposed to be final. Criticizing it for any of those things is a demonstration that you do not understand how science is supposed to function.

For some of the background on this particular theory I highly recommend reading https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/2009... and the follow-up https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/2009.... (If you want to get to the point, it is probably better to start with the follow-up.)

cristianpascu• 11 years ago

Good luck with testing a psychology theory.

btilly3• 11 years ago

The fundamental problem with testing psychology was explained by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It is that no theory has (yet) proven so compelling that everyone can agree on it. And that is the case because the subject is intrinsically complex.

That said, despite its limitations and current failures, we do not have a better intellectual process than science to study such questions.

sdalfakj• 11 years ago

Criticizing it for any of those things is a demonstration that you do not understand how science is supposed to function.

Good luck criticizing science when you forbade yourself to criticize pretty much all study shortcomings using those all-encompassing guidelines that all point to a single conclusion, i.e. "Don't criticize me, I'm just a prediction bro".

btilly3• 11 years ago

There are useful criticisms, and useless criticisms. It is easy to criticize studies for not being what you want them to be, but the exercise is useless. It is harder to criticize studies for failing to be what they are supposed to be, but the exercise is far more useful.

Here are some valid criticisms of studies. It doesn't clearly state the theory. It doesn't clearly state the prediction. It doesn't actually test what it tries to test. It doesn't have references to where you can learn more about the theory. It fails to refer to important evidence in the literature that it should have. It doesn't describe the limitations of the design. It doesn't have suggestions about how to better follow up on the result.

In the end a study is supposed to be one point in a grand logical argument that eventually comes to a conclusion about said theory. It should be criticized based whether it is a well-made point, not on whether it is a complete argument.

Oblouk• 11 years ago

I see no problem with the Wording of this study. Firstly the study is not trying to go so far as to determine the reasons for such results. That is it is not statinng the reason behind why ltrs have lower testosterone.

Instead it is seeking to determine "[...] whether being in such a relationship (rather than being married) is the meaningful predictor of male testosterone levels."

Emphasis on meaningful predictor.

discardorama• 11 years ago

(Sample of 1). I think my personal experience would seem to indicate so. I've been in a committed relationship for 2 years. But sometimes the wife travels, and I hang out with my single friends, going to bars, flirting with chicks, etc. And I find that I'm a lot more 'affectionate' after this episode. Could it be that I miss the wife so much? I have noticed a difference between when I do the bar scene, and when I don't.

spacko3• 11 years ago

I second this ... I actually even encourage my gf to flirt with other men - it keeps you mentally fresh and vital

jvanderbot2• 11 years ago

I have access to the article. This statement is key: "By increasing libido, higher T may encourage mateseeking behavior."

Of course testosterone drops when you find a mate. You don't have to fight for one any more.

They go on to show that it further decreases when you have children. Since virility is affected by T levels, it's a good hypothesis that having kids is likely a trigger to reduce the risk-seeking behavior in males after children are born.

It's kind of a "no duh" result in that light, and they sought to find evidence that supports this hypothesis. However, they are clear to state that they cannot address causation directly.

"High-T men may be less likely to enter stable, romantic relationships. Additionally, affiliative interactions with a partner may decrease T levels, in turn reducing mating effort. We also expect T variation within the group of paired men to be consistent with variation in mating effort, although we are not able to test this with our data set. For example, it may be that paired-male T levels will be highest during times of sexual activity with a partner (as suggested in Hirschenhauser et al., 2002) or that variation in the strength of the pair bond might explain variance in T levels among paired individuals. These are all topics for which longitudinal data would be of great help in teasing apart cause and effect."

jacques_chester• 11 years ago

The nice thing about "no duh" results is that, every once in a while, something unexpected happens. And then, if you're lucky, a new glimpse of the world happens.

jvanderbot2• 11 years ago

Science is built on layers and layers of dull data collection (like this one). But yah, a no-duh result that doesn't come through is fun.

ISL• 11 years ago

A good way to check for whether or not a new piece of information is interesting is to ask, "Would I be surprised if the opposite happened?"

Would you be surprised if the test subjects' testosterone was observed to be independent of relationship status?

sullyj3• 11 years ago

That's actually a terrible way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

spacko3• 11 years ago

It's odd that "low Testosterone levels" (as in "lower T levels compared to ...") is automatically considered to be something bad (by male readers). High T-levels are connected with higher susceptibility to inflammation f.x.

fierycatnet2• 11 years ago

Low testosterone is pretty bad... fatigue, mental fog, low sex drive, weak muscles, ED, etc. I have low test and it's not something that I consider normal. The difference between low and high T is night and day. It greatly affects the well being.

spacko3• 11 years ago

so all the husbands in the world have weak muscles and mental fog ... ? :D

that's why I wrote my comment precisely as I did. the article is not about low T levels but comparatively low T levels (comparing to single guys)

aeze• 11 years ago

Lower, not low.

beachstartup2• 11 years ago

that's because it is bad. men need normal levels of testosterone. anyone who tells you otherwise has another agenda they're pushing (take a wild guess).

Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone

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