Testosterone (T) has been linked to poorer social cognition in younger adults. Because social cognition and T both decline with normal aging, a different type of relationship may exist between T and social cognition in late adulthood. To test this possibility, younger and older adults provided a salivary T sample and completed two social cognition tasks. The results showed that age-group was a significant moderator in the relationship between T and theory of mind (ToM) performance for males, such that T was a negative predictor of ToM in younger males and a positive predictor of ToM in older age. No relationships were identified for females. These findings show for the first time that T is differentially related to ToM in the early and later stages of the male adult lifespan, and are discussed in relation to prior work that suggests T may have neuroprotective effects in older age.

睾丸激素（T）与年轻人较弱的社会认知能力有关。由于社交认知和T都随着正常衰老而下降，因此成年后期T与社交认知之间可能存在不同类型的关系。为了检验这种可能性，年轻人和老年人提供了唾液T样本并完成了两项社会认知任务。结果表明，年龄组是男性T和心理理论（ToM）表现之间关系的重要调节剂，因此T在年轻男性中是ToM的阴性指标，在老年中是ToM的阳性指标。未发现与女性的关系。这些发现首次表明，在成年男性的早期和晚期，T与ToM差异相关​​，