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Is testosterone the key to sex differences in human behaviour?

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Fine, C 

Abstract

A common assumption, which I refer to as the ‘Testosterone Rex’ view, is that testosterone is a proximal tool of distal evolutionary processes, acting via the brain (prenatally, then from pubescence) to shape sex differences in behaviour that would have been differentially reproductively advantageous for men versus women in our ancestral past. Joe, as you put it in your book Testosterone: Sex, power and the will to win, ‘for [male] reproduction to be successful, testosterone has to act on many parts of the male to make him fit for the competitive world of male sexuality’. So, for example, males’ greater testosterone exposure predisposes them to be more risk-taking and competitive than females – an idea sometimes called on to help explain gender gaps in risky and competitive occupations, a category which happens to include most high-status and well-remunerated roles.

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Keywords

Journal Title

Psychologist

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0952-8229

Volume Title

30

Publisher

British Psychological Society

Publisher DOI