A Side Effect of Testosterone Poisoning

obtuse writes "With a finding that may explain Internet trolls — or at least building contractors — U. of Michigan researchers have discovered that individuals with high levels of testosterone find an angry face rewarding. In their experiments, this was true even if the angry image was perceived subliminally so that the subjects didn't register it consciously."

It explains criminals

[statemachine]

Especially the violent, bullying type.

I am a general contractor

[sponga]

I have worked my way up from grunt work to foreman/supervisor; this line of work takes some words to get your ass moving and you haven't got time to be sitting around day dreaming.
Construction is a stressful business majority of the time and a lot of people have no idea what it is like to have an inspector that cost $300/hr to just sit around because your crew couldn't get everything cleaned up. So you raise your voice and the next time they know to pick up the pace to get the project completed.

Where did it say anything about building contractors and trolls in that article anyways.
I find my job very enjoying knowing that I usually can complete a several million dollar project in a week and get enjoyment at looking at a finished project. There are a lot of hot heads in all types of business it is just that when you work construction you usually have to raise your voice over all the other stuff going on and seem to express yourself more because it is a very busy environment with million dollar projects weekly that will fuck up your whole bidding schedule for other projects.

Now how a internet troll and a building contractor are comparable I have no fucking clue but the article described something completely different on people being teasers get enjoyment out of it and I usually don't tease my crew besides rolling up with a 24 pack in the back of my truck for them when they finish the days work.

Not really

[Shadowlore]

1) What's with the "poisoning"? There is no speak of poisoning of testosterone, merely people with "low" vs. "high".
2) Internet trolls by (current) definition do not see the faces so this doesn't apply.

Now building contractors however ....

Re:Rambo V: The Slashdot Troll

[Giometrix]

"Sly sad it was prescribed by his doctors for a "mystery medical ailment"."

I guess having a 6 pack and 60 is just a side effect?

Going way out on a limb here

[ScrappyLaptop]

...but isn't this classic Alpha behavior? Do the psychologists even study chimps and gorillas any more? If your underling (or a potential threat to your rule) only briefly shows an anger face but not long enough to be perceived as a threat, that means you 'won' the confrontation and have established your superiority in the heirarchy.

Of course, with chimps it's actually the ones that stay on the fringes and avoid the Alpha (we'll call them Chimp Geeks) that have the most sex with the females, as the Alpha & underlings are too busy and stressed about staying on the top o' the heap...

Re:Explains a lot

[rtb61]

It is all about control, excessive testosterone develops a greater need for control over your environment ie. you have a greater competitive attitude to all elements with in your environment, human and otherwise. Angry faces are there because you are creating them, forcing a change in the emotions of others around you and specifically forcing them to adopt negative unhealthy emotions and stealing away their ability to control their mental state ie. challenging them and winning.

Building sites and the industry as a whole is very competitive, very aggressive and quite physically confrontational, as a designer/estimator/contract administrator, it is quite a challenge to enforce your presence and control on the contractors, and ensure that project goals are met (good training for being an aggresive, proactive customer, you buy product, you don't get sold product).

Re:Explains a lot

[bladesjester]

I probably have greater than average testosterone if physical signs are any indication. I'll also admit that I used to be hot-headed and felt the need to be in control of everything as a young teenager.

Now I tend to be a lot more laid back and deal with things at the appropriate time. However, it has been learned by some people that it's more a case of an iron fist in a velvet glove if you decide to try and push me in directions that you shouldn't.

I can be downright intimidating (and for good reason) if I want/need to. Heck, I get told far too often that I look like a merc. However, anymore I prefer to be calm and relaxed, only letting the ugly side of myself out in a controlled manner when necessary.

A lot of the change probably has to do with life experience in my case. I've found that being in charge in a lot of the situations I've been thrust into is usually a job for a cool head rather than a hot temper.

Re:More science fraud.

[otomo_1001]

Actually this general trend has come up in my circle of friends. Yes most are IT geeks, but not all by a long shot. But the anecdotal evidence is this: In general women outside the US seem to have less of a desire for a power struggle to "one up" themselves above men. This seems to lead to having a more successful relationships since there is less competition to be the person in power.

Note I am not trying to say the guy should be the one in power in the relationship. Just that if both parties go in expecting equality instead of trying to gain the upper hand things turn out better.

I personally have had much more fulfilling relationships with women born outside of the US. The ones from within the US all tended to be far too materialistic and wanting to either change me personally or to want to dictate how the relationship progressed on their own.

Does anyone else see this happening? Or is this just a stupid midwestern thing? My east coast buddies say to just come to Miami and I will get married in a heartbeat. For my circle of friends the general consensus is that American women aren't worth pursuing. My oldest friend says it is because of the "trade up" culture we have here. Marry the best model guy you can at the time, wait and shop around for a better model and then trade in the current guy and move on.

I just find the phrase "testosterone poisoning" highly spurious at best. What is the amount, or can testosterone even poison us? I imagine it would take very high doses, but doubt our own bodies could produce such quantities.

ps: Glad I am learning some Portuguese based on your post. Of course I also found that French and German women don't seem to have the odd dating habits that Americans do. Mod me down, I have karma to burn. (Testosterone poisoning side effect #2? :D )

Right Analysis, wrong conclusion

[MidnightBrewer]

What I find amazing about such so-called scientific reports is that they often seem to be based on a conclusion in search of a hypothesis. So, people responded most strongly to an angry face vs. a neutral face or the absence of any face (duh on the last one.) Talk about skewed! What, no happy face? What if people had reacted more strongly to that? That would have upset the conclusion just a bit.

I think the best conclusion you can draw from this is that people respond to the stimulus of an angry face vs. a neutral one because it is in an animal's nature to avoid things that might hurt them. I would sooner respond to a rock thrown at me than one just sitting on the ground, too. That doesn't necessarily mean I seek to have rocks thrown at me, does it? It's a little something called a survival instinct. Sure, there are people who are just a little bit perverse and enjoy the adrenaline rush of somebody being angry at them, but I think bringing that into the article smacks of an author who either only poorly understands their subject, or is trying too hard to make it digestable for the average person.

Women

[tsa]

Do women with more than average testosterone levels also like angry faces?

Bad science, and misandrist to boot!

[Torodung]

I can think of another theory which would fit the results...

How about people who have higher testosterone levels get bigger (or quicker) *adrenal responses*? Did these scientists check any other hormone levels? Did they have subjects hooked up to a pulse/ox monitor? Did they check adrenal response, and/or other fight-or-flight factors, when they administered their test?

I have worked in a University psych department, and though it is not mentioned in the article, I doubt they had these subjects hooked up to so much as a *pulse/ox*. Most psychologists tend to divorce the brain from the body. It is foolish. The brain is just another organ, and we need to stop treating it like it is somehow mystically separate from the body. Especially scientists, who should be ashamed of themselves for doing so.

News flash: Your brain is hooked up to your cardiovascular system, and if that gets goosed, your brain, if it can stand the strain, is going to be more efficient.

I want to know what the subjects' heart rates were when they saw that angry face.

But rather than investigating the obvious suggestion of a physical response to negative stimulus, these dopes claim that such men ENJOY seeing an angry face instead? Malarkey. I doubt *any* subject would agree with the sentence: "I like angry faces."

I think the only goal of this study was to put down men, and how perverse we apparently are. These are politicians, not scientists, and when they collect data that may indicate that testosterone can confer limited advantage in crisis, they perversely claim that men *relish* anger, because no matter what data came back, that's what they've set out to "prove."

Of course, there is the ugly fact that MY explanation might have us reviewing the concept of female combat brigades again, and that is politically unacceptable to these "scientists."

"Guess What? Men _Are_ More Naturally Able When Confronting Hostility" (Can you imagine that headline?)

But honestly, we can give female soldiers shots of testosterone to improve their combat readiness if my theory is correct. What can we do when we draw the *wrong* conclusion: that men "enjoy" anger? Ban men? Didn't Maureen Dowd write a book about that?

God save us from politicians, and their damned lies, statistics, and correlative studies.

--
Toro

Next study, "high testosterone" males more likely to shoot off angry emails without thinking!

Re:More science fraud.

[NIckGorton]

"Lesbians, for example, like to use the phrase 'testosterone poisoning' about men as a way of convincing women who have relationships with men to have sex with another woman."

First, lesbians don't want to have sex with straight women any more than I want to have sex with you. I am a man who likes to have sex with gay men. Though even if you are a closet case... um I'm on a drama free diet. However George Takei might be interested... at least if you play basketball. http://www.devilducky.com/media/58118/ [devilducky.com]

Second, as a general rule lesbians have no problem with men who are neither sexist bastards nor think that lesbians 'just need a good man' to convince them to be straight. I can say that with pretty good certainty because I work two days a week as a physician at a historically queer focused women's health clinic. So I think that hostility you are feeling has more to do with the fact that you are a mysogynist prick rather than the fact that you have a prick.

Re:Not really

[Hoi Polloi]

I'm tired of the way men are portrayed in TV and movies now. Virtually every family sitcom has the father as a bumbling idiot and the woman is always the level headed take charge person. Ads on TV frequently do this too with the guy needing to be set straight by the smarter, more mature woman. In movies it is pretty common to see the guy as unable to make a decision and the woman is the hero. You even see it in kid's cartoons now. I wonder if the writers do this to appeal to woman in the audience and men just passively accept it. It is a little jab but after seeing this image countless times I'm sure it has some affect on people's perceptions.

Re:It explains criminals

[hackstraw]

No one demands that you share anyone else's biases or tastes. Obviously there is a significant group of the population that gets off on the misery of others.

So, why don't you all get together, in some remote location, and make each other miserable. That way you'll all be happy!

Its not about happy or miserable, its about domination and pecking order.

Testosterone is an important chemical in human dominance. Once someone displays being angry relative to another person, then they lose the dominance game, and the other guy wins.

One of many silly charactersistics of the human animal.

Also, its worth noting that the study said that the higher testosterone levels in both men and women followed this pattern. Pretty interesting study me thinks.

testosterone poisoning... pc college word game?

[gd23ka]

You coined the term now we want to now what's your agenda? I still believe
you are from one of these colleges that work hard to feminize whatever male
concept they can so why not start with the male sexual hormone and call that
a poison.

I suppose you can get away with it on campus where lumping the words poison
and testosterone together and maybe adding a little global warming or rainforst
defoliation gets the student population all riled up. Out here in the real world
however you are not dealing with a predictable crowd of insecure youngsters
eager to please and blend. I have enough cohones (full of the hormone I assure
you) to deal with you and if that upsets you then yes... in accordance with the
theory above... I enjoy your upset.

Btw... if you're at a college and in trouble for laughing at the wrong moment
(like when someone starts to talk about testosterone poisoning) go to
http://www.thefire.org/ [thefire.org] Foundation for Individual's Rights in Education