Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA; Division of Social Sciences, Yale-NUS College, Singapore 138527, Singapore.
Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2021 Nov;133:105396. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2021.105396. Epub 2021 Aug 27.
Intergroup competitions such as democratic elections can intensify intergroup polarization and conflict. Partisan attitudes toward the elected leader can also shift from before to after an election, but the biology underlying these attitudinal shifts remains largely unknown. An important factor could be the hormone testosterone, which is theorized to fluctuate during competition and to influence status seeking. In a naturalistic study of 113 registered voters, we measured changes in testosterone levels and attitudes toward the winner of the 2012 US Presidential Election. We found that supporters of the losing candidate (Mitt Romney) showed acute increases in testosterone levels compared to supporters of the winner (Barack Obama) on the evening of Election Day. Supporters of the losing candidate also demonstrated flatter diurnal testosterone slopes on Election Day that persisted up to two days after the election. Furthermore, greater increases in acute testosterone levels and flatter diurnal slopes among supporters of the losing candidate were associated with less positive evaluations of the winning candidate. These testosterone-moderated attitudinal shifts observed in the days after the election showed a directionally similar pattern with a weaker effect size six months later. Finally, we confirmed that the main results were robust to alternative data analytic choices using multiverse specification curve analysis. The findings from this paper suggest that hormonal responses to large-scale intergroup competitions may shape how we perceive our elected leaders, shedding light on the biology of intergroup relations.
群体间竞争，如民主选举，可能会加剧群体间的两极分化和冲突。党派对当选领导人的态度也可能在选举前后发生转变，但这些态度转变的生物学基础在很大程度上仍是未知的。一个重要的因素可能是激素睾丸酮，它被认为在竞争中会波动，并影响对地位的追求。在一项对 113 名注册选民的自然主义研究中，我们测量了睾丸酮水平的变化和对 2012 年美国总统选举获胜者的态度。我们发现，与支持获胜者（巴拉克·奥巴马）的选民相比，落败候选人（米特·罗姆尼）的支持者在选举日当晚的睾丸酮水平急剧上升。落败候选人的支持者在选举日的昼夜睾丸酮斜率也更为平坦，并持续到选举后两天。此外，落败候选人支持者的急性睾丸酮水平升高幅度越大，昼夜斜率越平坦，对获胜候选人的评价就越低。这些在选举日后观察到的睾丸酮介导的态度转变与六个月后较弱的效应大小具有相似的方向。最后，我们通过多元规范曲线分析证实了主要结果在替代数据分析选择下是稳健的。本文的研究结果表明，对大规模群体间竞争的激素反应可能会影响我们对当选领导人的看法，为群体关系的生物学提供了启示。
