A Side Effect of Testosterone Poisoning 273
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 (Score:2, Interesting)
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I think it's unfair to demand people to share your own personal biases and tastes.
you people are bigots and deserve all the beatings that you get!
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So, why don't you all get together, in some remote location, and make each other miserable. That way you'll all be happy!
And the rest of the world will be a happier, and possibly safer, place without any griefers around.
Alternatively if you prefer you could hang around enjoying making trouble for everyone else, but then it's only fair that everyon
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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
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So it all depends on whether you are a selfish capitalist pig, or a dirty commie sympathizer.
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QED
Godwin's Law (Score:2)
Trolls don't find "an angry face" rewarding... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Trolls don't find "an angry face" rewarding... (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose I am giving this troll what they really subliminally want.
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Please mod trolls funny/interesting/insightful (Score:2, Funny)
MOD parent down (Score:3, Funny)
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Try it on MSN or Skype sometime.
-uso.
Explains a lot (Score:3, Insightful)
The list goes on and on
Re:Explains a lot (Score:4, Interesting)
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).
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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
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Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ra
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I just walked out. But clearly thats what he wanted. It was a franchise, so he'd barely make any cash on selling me new wipers, he just want to wind up another customer.
If its such an antisocial substance, they should control it. In his case, a couple of hammers would do the trick. And there were
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But... (Score:5, Funny)
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A: They just sit out in the sun!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
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ewh, sorry. was just following the whole troll aspect of this thread. please dont GTFO on account of an anonymous coward.
dont guess I'm a vary good troll.
YHTB. YHL. HAND. (Score:5, Funny)
There is your reward. Are you happy now?
Rambo V: The Slashdot Troll (Score:5, Informative)
"I want... what they want... what those trolls. They just want to be heard. {grabs mike} Bill Gates, I'm comin' to get you!" (Whacks Steve Balmer with chair and dives out the window with DRM lawyers in pursui
Sly sad it was prescribed by his doctors for a "mystery medical ailment". No, seriously.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/stallone-sorr
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/stallones-ful
Don't panic, Rambolovers and Rockettes. Being a 51st State of America, Australia extends immunity to Hollywood Celebrities too. Sly will gush about he loves Australia and walk free. Just as well. Here's to Rambo IV, where he goes back and kicks the ass of the Tabliban guys he freed in III.
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I guess having a 6 pack and 60 is just a side effect?
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in other news (Score:3)
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I am a general contractor (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Wear high heels == Get pregnant (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see the comic connection either. You shouldn't take it too seriously though, because while they may have found some correlation between testosterone, subliminal angry faces, and learning responses, they certainly haven't found a link.
Might as well say you have found a link between shopping for shoes, wearing high heals, and getting pregnant. A correlation is certainly there, but linking them together in the
I am not a general contractor (Score:3, Informative)
I'm just cranky because I just got done spending a couple of years of my life with major contractors who made every single job difficult. These particular guys are an assholes, and I'm sorry to say, that seems to be the rule. I also understand that in that environment, it definitely helps to be pushy and confrontational, and I was trying to be funny.
What do
Re:I am a general contractor (Score:4, Funny)
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Almost everyone in every industry finds a way to dick around and waste time, whether chatting with coworkers, smoking, reading slashdot, drinking coffee, staring off into space, etc.
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Not really (Score:3, Interesting)
2) Internet trolls by (current) definition do not see the faces so this doesn't apply.
Now building contractors however
Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a man is a disease. That's the implied message I hear these days. Perhaps you're thinking I'm slightly exaggerating, or that I'm just trolling, but just take a look at this article for instance. The principal author of this research found that men with higher levels of testosterones learn better when faced with angry faces. So the conclusion/title of her study, and the corresponding headline on slashdot should have been: "Construction Workers Learn Better when Faced with Stress" or "Construction Workers Not as Dumb as Previously Thought" -- it shouldn't have been "High-testosterone people reinforced by others' anger".
But instead, the story gets completely reframed, and the researcher herself makes the huge leap of logic that since "Better learning of a task associated with anger faces [it] indicates that the anger faces were rewarding"
What!?! What the F____?? How did she reach that conclusion? And yes, I did understand the thing about the rat learning better when it gets rewarded. The missing part of her remarks however is that there are plenty of other ways we can enhance our memory. For instance, the rat and the human being also learn a lot better when they're about to get killed. And whether it's fear, sorrow, happiness, or simply ecstasy, all those emotional states have been found to enhance our memory, and extend our senses, when compared to our more neutral emotional states. So this doesn't surprise me in the least, that she and her TA, found what they found. So it's not the findings themselves, that trouble me, it's the conclusions they draw from those findings that worry me.
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Re:Not really (Score:4, Interesting)
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More science fraud. (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.S. is the developed country in which women have the most disfunctional relationships with men. So reporting the story about testosterone as "testosterone poisoning" is a way to get attention. 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.
In reality, angry people have high testosterone, whether they are men or women. The bodies of both men and women [jeanhailes.org.au] produce testosterone.
If you have observed how hostile women are in the U.S. toward men, I suggest you try visiting Brazil. Women in Brazil are certainly not perfect, and they are sexist, also. However, women in Brazil are, in general, far more confident of themselves, far happier, and far more creative and functional in their relationships with men than women in the United States.
Anyone wondering whether I am in a position to know about Brazilian women can reflect on the fact that I am posting this comment from Brazil. (São Paulo state)
The social breakdown in the U.S. is so advanced that often even men are hostile toward men.
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Men produce about ten times as much testosterone as women. It's ~500ng/ml in men versus ~50ng/ml in women, though levels vary widely (most notably with age). Testosterone deficiency in aging men is a widespread but lamentably misunderstood and denied problem.
Also, blacks have a lot more than other races, and Orientals much less... as is obviously appar
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You mean their larger average body mass. Because, yes, I would expect that groups with on average larger body masses would produce on average more
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Actually, I just did a little googling; a JNCI study implies a 3-19% higher concentration on testosterone in American black males than American white males. I didn't find anything one way or another about asian men, and the study itself has been cast with doubt; although looking around I can't tell if that's due to "bad science" or
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I don't mean to get all peecee on you, but it's "asians". You'd refer to a rug or a set of fine porcelain dishware as "oriental" but not a person.
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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 expectin
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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.
Lol! Your version of "equality" sure sounds like the man is in control.
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.
And who can blame them? Men have been doing exactly that. Why do you think no-fault divorce has become so prevalent? It makes the serial monogamy of men who "trade up" that much easier - traditional divorce would have left them with a lot more of a financial support burden, it's not like women ever had to pay alimony. No fault divorce laws have meant a net loss for women in this culture.
So now that more women have acheived financi
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Your buddies are statistically speaking correct. There is a surplus of women on the east coast. [blogger.com]
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I lived in the midwest and now the northwest for the last 2 years. It's not just back there. There is definitely an expectation on the behavior of men in society while women almost get a free pass. I hear it from different social groups (least of all
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I can't say I'm surprised, but I've seen different problems with American women that the ones you listed, notably:
1) Unrealistic expectations - that 200+ lb fat girl in your office really does think that Brad Pitt would fall in love with her
Re:More science fraud. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the Lysenkoism you get when you get anti-intellectuals in powerful positions in increasing numbers. This produces garbage in defence like MIT material scientists talking about bulletproof superhero costumes to get a grant when they know that some thickness is needed to absorb energy but the comics will be believed before they are. Another example is the creation debate coming up again - it's really about the anti-intellectuals challenging anyone with a half decent education and using the argument they are most comfortable with even though it is irrelevant - Mendel was actually a very pious monk so the religeon angle is just an excuse to pretend they know more.
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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]
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This is "social breakdown" in the US? Not that 1960's, not even the 1860's, but this? I know the "... but with a whimper" bit, but isn't this taking things to the extreme?
"The U.S. is the developed country in which women have the most disfunctional relationships with men."
Got a link? I mean, just sticking with the G8, Japan comes to mind.
And here's a question: what
"you're beautiful when you're angry" (Score:3, Funny)
Damnit! (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder what that means about my demeanor...
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*turning green, clothes splitting, resembling Lou Farrigno...*
Going way out on a limb here (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
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The Actual Paper (Score:3, Informative)
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~oschult/publicatio
FYI their test group was 26 males and 24 females age 18~23
They did two studies, the first was not controlled for time of day, the 2nd was.
Seriously flawed methodology. (Score:5, Insightful)
Note the face alternatives: angry, neutral, or none at all. No happy faces, puzzled faces, or any face showing any emotion other than anger. Most people -- testosterone or not -- prefer some kind of facial expression to a totally neutral one. (It indicates some recognition of their presence.) [s/angry/emotional/ from the original]
That's all this experiment shows. Which probably really just means that high-testosterone folks learn this particular kind of task faster. Testosterone is known to have an effect on brain development, so it may just be that high-T levels are just an indicator for people whose brains are already geared to learning this kind of task faster.
Sheesh.
(Doesn't surprise me though. It's been my experience -- and I worked for several years at a university doing, among other things, statistics support for grad students and profs in the social sciences -- that psychologists tend not to be very good at experiment design. Maybe not enough testosterone
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A better summary would have been "High testosterone allows people to read facial emotions better"
Right Analysis, wrong conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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Bad science, and misandrist to boot! (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
another side effect (Score:5, Funny)
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That doesn't realy explain anything but .. (Score:2)
As my friends have noted since long time I feel pleasure from watching angry people. Even so as when people completely loose control and start shouting and screaming, I usually start laughing.
I don't know why, but it gives me this nice feeling of focus, empowerment and a bit of a weird feeling I can't describe but 'evil calm'.
Reduce testosterone the natural way (Score:2)
Poisoning? (Score:2)
Talk about hating men.
Oh WOW. (Score:2)
Ok, this article inspired me to go find a copy of "Macho, Macho Duck". I couldn't find an MP3 to download (but if someone has a link, please share). BUT, what I found along the way is not only relevant, but hilarious! The Torture Tape Experiment. [chunklet.com] Basically, the goal is to make a mix tape so awful, it drives your opponent mad. You and your opponent prepare tapes for each other, trade, listen and weep.
Now, if this isn't something that digs at the "angry face" response, I don't know what is. Imagine goi
I'm (Score:3, Funny)
Poorly-controlled experiment (Score:2)
"University of Michigan Researchers": Read "Sensitive Urban Liberal Academics". —are unlikely to be able to distinguish between an angry face and a hard face.
Not surprising that hard people are attracted to other hard people at a visceral level. Maybe they'll have hard children. Could save us all in the end.
"Metrosexual?" Why make up a new word when we have a perfectly good old one: "effeminate".
You fucking assholes should die (Score:5, Funny)
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testosterone poisoning... pc college word game? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 predictab
Re:One Man's Poison (Score:4, Funny)
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Or as I pointed out in another post, maybe it means that high-testosterone people learn this kind of task faster. We already know that testosterone has an influence on early brain development.
Yeah, flawed methodology.
Re:Ron Paul and the Republican Debate (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Side effect of "estrogen poisoning:" Breast can (Score:2)
Clearly clean cats attract cars, as seen by this undisputable one example proof.
Sorry, to hear your loss, but people crapping out in a few months time happens a million time a year.
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The fact that you were probably right is just infinitely sad.