Does the male hormone “testosterone” really reduce human empathy?
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The theory that the male hormone testosterone reduces human cognitive sympathy and that the “masculinized brain”, which is strongly influenced by testosterone, is related to autism has recently attracted attention. However, past research in this field has a small number of samples and is not the result of a causal study, so researchers newly investigated the relationship between testosterone and cognitive empathy on a record scale.
Does testosterone impair men's cognitive empathy? Evidence from two large-scale randomized controlled trials | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.1062
No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy | Penn Today
https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/largest-study-its-kind-no-evidence-testosterone-reduces-cognitive-empathy
Earlier studies that showed that testosterone reduced cognitive empathy had limited samples and did not show a direct link between them, said one of the authors of the Western University neuroeconomics Said Amos Nadler, an academic and behavioral economist.
The research that showed the relationship between testosterone and cognitive empathy is famous in 2011 . The study showed that testosterone was administered to 16 healthy female subjects, and the performance of the emotion reading test was reduced. The study is also investigating the ratios that are thought to be 'indicating prenatal testosterone exposure.'
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The researchers in the above study support the hypothesis that the results of their experiments show that `` exposure to testosterone before birth creates a 'masculinized brain' that is not good at reading other people's emotions. '' I conclude that In fact, there are pros and cons to the relationship between testosterone and finger length, but this study is used to support the hypothesis that autism is due to a “masculined brain” became.
However, Gideon Nave, who studies personality psychology, points out that past studies have too few samples, and that many of the studies draw conclusions from correlation rather than causality.
Nadler and Nave conducted a randomized controlled study of 643 healthy men to gain stronger evidence of the relationship between testosterone and cognitive empathy. In this study, subjects were divided into a “testosterone gel” group and a “placebo group” who were asked to answer a questionnaire and be tasked to measure sympathetic cognition. After that, the test subject conducted a test to guess the emotion from the photograph of the actor's eyes and measured the ratio.
As a result, testosterone gel increased the subject's hormonal level, but testosterone did not reduce cognitive empathy. Researchers also found no relationship between subject performance and ratio.
by Toimetaja tõlkebüroo
Nave said, “The result was obvious, but“ no evidence ”is not“ evidence that it does n’t exist. ”We couldn't find evidence to support the effects of testosterone, I don't rule out all possible effects, but I think that if testosterone works, it's complicated and not linear. ' .
In addition, because the 2011 study has female subjects and the new study has male subjects, the results may be different. On the other hand, because the latest research is much larger than past research, researchers say the research results are reliable.
Although the hypothesis that autism is born from an extremely “masculined brain” is attracting attention, researchers have cautioned that strong evidence is not yet available in the data. “For now, we have to admit that we are ignorant about this,” the researcher said.
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