Challenges for determining the causal effects between social behavior and testosterone
- Gijsbert Stoeta,1 and
- David Cyril Gearyb,c
- aSchool of Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G3 6NH, United Kingdom;
- bDepartment of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211-2500;
- cInterdisciplinary Neuroscience, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211-2500
The authors of “Effects of gendered behavior on testosterone in women and men” in PNAS (1) claim that they observed sex differences in testosterone (T) responses following stereotyped acting. We believe, however, that the article contains numerous flaws and that the conclusions are not warranted for several reasons. First, the SEs for the power-wielding conditions in figure 3 of ref. 1 suggest that there are no significant sex differences in the increase of T before and after acting. We think that should be the critical comparison (i.e., the within-subjects factor “increase in …
↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: gijsbert.stoet{at}glasgow.ac.uk.
