Giving testosterone to women makes them behave more fairly and less prone to conflict. However, women who believe they have taken testosterone—but who have actually taken a placebo—behave more aggressively and more unfairly.

IceCorrect · 2026-05-18T14:31:23+00:00

Make sense with placebo. There is scapegoat to escape from responsibilities and they would pick it most of the times

ConsiderationSea1347 · 2026-05-18T14:38:30+00:00

Link to the paywalled article to show legitimacy since this is an x post: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08711

If I can find it without a paywall I will update this comment.

Edit: no paywall. https://www.psychologie.uni-freiburg.de/abteilungen/psychobio/team/publikationen/Nature-Testosterone%20and%20social%20behavior10.pdf (I have not yet read it but plan to when I get a break from work. It is a very short article)

Reaper621 · 2026-05-18T15:55:26+00:00

Somewhat unrelated but when I took the SAT, there was a question in the science portion about what would happen to female squirrels if you injected them with testosterone from male squirrels.

A) they become more aggressive B) they become less aggressive C) nothing changes D) they sprout testicles and begin fighting each other

Fucking wild answer to be on an exam of such importance.

zulhadm · 2026-05-18T16:01:25+00:00

This is huge! I’ve heard from word of mouth that testosterone is actually calming, but I couldn’t find any data to support that. Now we have it. This may also correlate with this other fact: lesbian relationships have the highest amount of domestic violence, while gay (two men) have the least.

pady453 · 2026-05-18T16:48:28+00:00

pretty interesting study but p = 0.031, f² = 0.24 is right at the threshold where you would want to see replication. that’s a pretty strong result for only N=60

Pretend-Storm4566 · 2026-05-18T20:53:05+00:00

Kind of funny actually.

DoxxDeezNutz · 2026-05-19T17:31:07+00:00

Well wouldn't ya know? Science proves the feminist narrative to be opposite of reality.

Surely this will make it in the mainstream news.

Alone-Situation-6129 · 2026-05-19T01:35:33+00:00

interesting perspective imo

Goose_gonna_kill_u · 2026-06-02T09:43:49+00:00

you mean trans men?

Constant_Tonight_256 · 2026-06-04T04:45:46+00:00

Testosterone has ZERO association with aggressiveness/violence, it's main function is to increase competitiveness and motivation to "win". If you increase the testosterone of a man who believes love and honesty are the best ways to secure status, that man will become MORE loving and honest.

Testosterone simply up-regulates the blueprints you have developed for success. These blueprints form early on. Thats why if an honest, and empathetic man is met with cruelty, he is conditioned into avoiding those traits because he has learnt that they leave you devoid of love.

It's not "I was hurt when I opened up about my feelings, so i'm not going to do it anymore". That implies a conscious decision, you were biochemically transformed by those experiences.

P.S. Neuro-plasticity is a thing. This is in no way an excuse to identify with your 'hormonal trauma'. Its a starting point to understand the clinically ignored ways in which men/boys are rewired by societal messaging, so you can help yourself and others.

bizurton · 2026-05-24T20:43:05+00:00

It also gives them facial hair, deeper voice, hair loss and no period. Enjoy!

Strigon_7 · 2026-05-18T14:45:13+00:00

Seems like a fringe science on the reading of it... somehwat biased in places and it didnt fully clarify the control group. But I am interested to read more

SidewaysGiraffe · 2026-05-18T19:09:12+00:00

So... do you have any actual evidence of that? I can believe it, but I'll need more than "trust me, bro".

For that matter, I'd want to see how it compared with men in the same situations, giving the damage that supplemental estrogens do to MtF transsexuals but not biological women. Neurochemistry isn't a toy, after all.

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