Effects of victory and defeat on testosterone and cortisol response to competition: Evidence for same response patterns in men and women

doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.02.011

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Volume 37, Issue 9, September 2012, Pages 1577-1581

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.02.011 Get rights and content

Summary

In this study, we report evidence from sport competition that is consistent with the biosocial model of status and dominance. Results show that testosterone levels rise and drop following victory and defeat in badminton players of both sexes, although at lower circulating levels in women. After losing the match, peak cortisol levels are observed in both sexes and correlational analyses indicate that defeat leads to rises in cortisol as well as to drops in testosterone, the percent change in hormone levels being almost identical in both sexes. In conclusion, results show the same pattern of hormonal responses to victory and defeat in men and women.

Introduction

According to several authors, testosterone (T) is what fuels the motivation to attain dominance when competing for resources, arousing behaviors for attaining and maintaining higher status (e.g. Wingfield et al., 1990, Archer, 2006, Mazur and Booth, 1998, Mehta et al., 2008, Stanton and Schultheiss, 2009). The most influential account of the T-dominance relationship in humans is the biosocial model of status (Mazur, 1985). In this model, circulating T arouses status-seeking behaviors to deal with dominance confrontations, increases and decreases its levels after victory and defeat, and provides affective feedback to influence subsequent dominant coping styles. Circulating cortisol (C) not only helps to prepare the body for action as part of the physiological stress response, but it is also a sign of discomfort in the recipient of dominant acts. While these tenets have accrued abundant empirical support from animal and human research (e.g. Oliveira, 2004, Archer, 2006, van Anders and Watson, 2006, Mehta et al., 2008, Salvador and Costa, 2009, Stanton and Schultheiss, 2009, Bos et al., 2012), one of Mazur's (1985) original conjectures still awaits proof.

He proposed a unisexual model of dominance behavior (same mechanisms for both sexes), but several studies failed to replicate the expected T rises and drops in women. Only Oliveira et al. (2009) provided such evidence in women, but their design did not include men thus making it impossible to compare the two sexes directly. Here, we report direct evidence for same response patterns in men and women, which suggests that the main tenets of the biosocial model of status apply fully to both sexes.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants were a randomly chosen sample of 50 players from The National Clubs League and The Spanish Open, for men's singles (mean age ± SD = 24.56 ± 4.01; body mass index = 22.70 ± 1.40; n = 27) and women's singles (age = 23.61 ± 3.77; body mass index = 21.50 ± 1.66; n = 23). Meetings were held with representatives of their clubs in the pre-season to explain the procedure that was going to be followed. Medical records were taken to exclude metabolic or endocrine diseases, drug consumption or psychiatric

Results

T levels for men and women are shown in Fig. 1A. Results showed that sex influenced T, main effect: F(1,46) = 41.17, p = 0.0001, $η_{p}^{2} = 0.47$ , and that T changed after victory and defeat, that is, when participants experienced the affective responses linked to the outcome, as indicated by a significant time × outcome interaction: F(1,46) = 58.57, p < 0.0001, $η_{p}^{2} = 0.56$ . Post hoc Tukey's test comparisons indicated higher T levels in men relative to women before competition, as victor men differed from victor

Discussion

In order to evaluate the significance of these findings in terms of dominance, it is useful to figure out to what extent the participants were really motivated to defeat their rivals. We think that winning was a highly valuable goal for them, as they were responsible for the prestige and wealth of their clubs (this implied a social-evaluative threat, for they could be negatively judged by others), and also because their own wages depended on their individual ranking attained at the end of the

Role of funding source

None.

Conflict of interest

There are no conflicts of interest for the authors.

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by Consejo Superior de Deportes (03UPB10/10) from Spain. The authors are grateful to the Hematology Laboratory of the Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital, Málaga.

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Short communicationEffects of victory and defeat on testosterone and cortisol response to competition: Evidence for same response patterns in men and women

Summary

Introduction

Section snippets

Participants

Results

Discussion

Role of funding source

Conflict of interest

Acknowledgments

Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev.

Evol. Hum. Behav.

Front. Neuroendocrinol.

Horm. Behav.

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev.

J. Res. Pers.

Short communication
Effects of victory and defeat on testosterone and cortisol response to competition: Evidence for same response patterns in men and women