Hormones Affect Men's Sense Of Fair Play

New Scientist ^ | 7-4-2007 | Roxanne Khamsi

[blam]

Hormones affect men's sense of fair play

11:33 04 July 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi

Next time you have to negotiate a deal with a male business contact, you might want to check his hormone levels first. A new study shows that men with high levels of testosterone are more likely to turn down low offers, even if they stand to gain money by accepting them.

According to researchers, the finding demonstrates that our hardwired biology can cause us to make irrational economic decisions.

In what is known as the "low ultimatum game", an anonymous individual can offer either a large or small chunk of cash to another person, without any opportunity for negotiation.

The player who receives the offer knows how much the other player has in total, and therefore knows the fraction they have been offered. If the deal is accepted, both players keep their split of the total. But if the deal is refused, neither gets anything.

Often, the person offered the free money rejects it if it represents too small a slice of the pie. The refusal to accept this money has puzzled economists because the cash comes with no strings attached.

Morality v biology

To make sense of this decision, some experts have proposed that the person refusing the paltry payout wants to punish the other player for making an unfair offer.

But Terry Burnham at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, suspected that this irrational economic decision might have more to do with basic biology than moral convictions.

He recruited 26 male graduate school students to play the low ultimatum game. Each subject started out with $40 and could anonymously offer either $5 or $25 of this sum to another player.

[Asclepius]

So that’s my problem. I thought I was just a stubborn pin-head with father issues. Perhaps the whole conservative movement is about testosterone and questionable parenting. And perhaps liberalism is about shrill little girly-men who in a more enlightened age would have served as eunuch harem-keepers. Something to think about I must say.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Does this explain why women supposedly make so much less than men do at work? They won’t hold out for more?

[Larry Lucido]

Nice negotiating with you, miss, um, what was your name again? And what was that I signed?

[hkp123]

Move on, folks. No story here. My testes are for my wife and not you. That’s what testes are for. Move on. Bigger stories are coming.

[chrisser]

I thought the last line interesting:

"...if you are seeking to determine your business contact's testosterone levels and saliva is hard to obtain, look out for a wedding ring. Married men tend to have less of the hormone."

Does this mean that men with lower testosterone levels are more likely to marry, or that marriage has an adverse effect on testosterone production?

(My married friends would probably list other possibilities - something about testicles and a lockbox...)

[kinoxi]

So low testosterone levels make the male more readily accept the ‘situation’. That would make sense from a biological point of view. Higher testosterone levels according to some other info I’ve read indicate a ‘dominant male’. This is not new.

[fatboynic]

Ping!

[tophat9000]

No it’s taking the long view... for you to even perceive or make the judgment it’s a “low offer” you must have some idea of it’s value to judge against...

[Larry Lucido]

No need to get teste. :-)

[Madame Dufarge]

Something to think about I must say.

I've thought about it.

Testosterone wins out over Shrill Girly Men on the Applause-O-Meter.

Of course this is just a knee-jerk reaction, but it's worked so far.

[MacDorcha]

Huh? ::blink:: I’m sorry, what?

(man... I have no idea what...)

Huh?

[DumpsterDiver]

Does this mean that men with lower testosterone levels are more likely to marry, or that marriage has an adverse effect on testosterone production?

I haven't read this, but what the heck, I'm posting it anyway.

BBC - Radio 4 - Woman's Hour -Men's libido
A new study in China shows evidence that married men with children have much lower testosterone level than single men and married non-fathers...

[rurgan]

More of our hard earned tax money wasted by Marxists in a government university or government agency.

Maybe this money could have been used by the private sector to invest in something that someone could actually use, give some people jobs, grow our economy etc. instead of being wasted by some stuck up liberal pin heads in some university.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Kevmo]

B4L8r

[Syncro]

You could have at least posted some text with that picture