Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong; School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Biol Psychol. 2023 Mar;178:108524. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108524. Epub 2023 Feb 16.
Testosterone is associated with both aggressive and prosocial behavior, which depend on the social context and the trade-off between self- and other-interest. However, little is known about the effects of testosterone on prosocial behavior in a context without such trade-offs. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of exogenous testosterone on prosocial behavior by using a prosocial learning task. Healthy male participants (n =120) received a single dose of testosterone gel in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-participants experiment. Participants performed a prosocial learning task in which they were asked to learn to gain rewards for three different recipients, i.e., self, other and computer, by choosing symbols associated with potential rewards. The results showed that testosterone administration increased the learning rates across all the recipient conditions (d = 1.57; d = 0.50; d = 0.99). More importantly, participants in the testosterone group had a higher prosocial learning rate than those in the placebo group (d = 1.57). These findings suggest that testosterone generally enhances reward sensitivity and prosocial learning. The present study corroborates the social status hypothesis, according to which testosterone promotes status-seeking prosocial behavior when it is appropriate to the social context.
睾酮与攻击行为和亲社会行为都有关联，而这两种行为取决于社会环境以及自利和利他之间的权衡。然而，人们对于在不存在这种权衡的情况下，睾酮对亲社会行为的影响知之甚少。本研究旨在通过使用亲社会学习任务来探究外源性睾酮对亲社会行为的影响。在一项双盲、安慰剂对照、被试间实验中，120 名健康男性参与者接受了单次睾酮凝胶治疗。参与者进行了一项亲社会学习任务，他们需要通过选择与潜在奖励相关的符号，为三个不同的接受者（即自己、他人和计算机）学习获得奖励。结果表明，睾酮给药增加了所有接受者条件下的学习率（d = 1.57；d = 0.50；d = 0.99）。更重要的是，睾酮组的参与者比安慰剂组的参与者具有更高的亲社会学习率（d = 1.57）。这些发现表明，睾酮通常会增强奖励敏感性和亲社会学习。本研究支持了社会地位假说，即当社会环境合适时，睾酮会促进寻求地位的亲社会行为。
