Peters Brett J, Hammond Matthew D, Reis Harry T, Jamieson Jeremy P
Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, United States.
School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn Parade P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6012, New Zealand.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2016 Dec;74:308-315. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.09.024. Epub 2016 Sep 29.
Testosterone reactivity has been conceptualized as a marker of social submission at low levels and social dominance at high levels. However, hormonal fluctuations in response to romantic partners remain largely unknown. Towards this end, 88 couples (N=176) discussed an emotional video. Prior to the conversation, one member of the dyad (the "agent") was instructed to regulate affective displays in a specific way (express or suppress). The other dyad member (the "partner") was given no special instruction and was unaware of regulation instructions given to the agent. Agents who regulated affective displays were expected to exhibit decreased testosterone from baseline because they were prevented from tuning their emotional responses to their partners. Furthermore, we expected declines in testosterone would be moderated by partners' authoritativeness: People would be particularly submissive to more dominant partners. Predictions were supported for females and partially supported for males. Agents exhibited decreases in testosterone from baseline relative to partners. For females, this main effect was moderated by partners' trait-level authoritativeness: Females interacting with partners higher in authority exhibited larger decreases in testosterone when instructed to restrict their emotion regulation strategies. This research is the first to document testosterone reactivity in existing romantic relationships and underscores the importance of taking into account social and relational contexts when examining hormonal regulation.
睾酮反应性在低水平时被视为社会顺从的标志，在高水平时则被视为社会主导的标志。然而，对浪漫伴侣做出反应时的激素波动情况仍 largely 未知。为此，88 对情侣（N = 176）讨论了一段情感视频。在对话之前，二元组中的一名成员（“施动者”）被指示以特定方式调节情感表达（表达或抑制）。二元组中的另一名成员（“伴侣”）未得到特殊指示，且不知道给予施动者的调节指示。预计调节情感表达的施动者睾酮水平会较基线下降，因为他们被阻止根据伴侣调整自己的情绪反应。此外，我们预计睾酮水平的下降会受到伴侣权威性的调节：人们会特别顺从更具主导性的伴侣。研究预测对女性得到了支持，对男性则部分得到了支持。与伴侣相比，施动者的睾酮水平相对于基线出现了下降。对于女性而言，这一主效应受到伴侣特质水平权威性的调节：当被指示限制情绪调节策略时，与权威性较高的伴侣互动的女性，其睾酮水平下降幅度更大。这项研究首次记录了现有浪漫关系中的睾酮反应性，并强调在研究激素调节时考虑社会和关系背景的重要性。
