Testosterone and competition in women and men

High testosterone is linked to dominance and competitive behaviors, but that link is less clear in humans, particularly in women. High testosterone women may hesitate to compete because they may suffer negative social consequences for behaving dominantly. We hypothesized that women in general would perform better in a prosocial or cooperative competition vs. a traditional head-to-head condition, and that high testosterone women would perform particularly well in a prosocial competition. We also predicted that high testosterone males would perform best in a traditional competition than a prosocial one. We found that testosterone predicted performance in the competitive condition overall, with marginal between sex differences. Possible reasons for these findings include a change in women's attitudes about competition and different pathways to status among high and low testosterone women