Testosterone is associated with status-seeking behaviors such as competition, which may depend on whether one wins or loses status, but also on the stability of one's status. We examined (1) to what extent testosterone administration affects competition behavior in repeated social contests in men with high or low rank, and (2), whether this relationship is moderated by hierarchy stability, as predicted by the status instability hypothesis. Using a real effort-based design in healthy male participants (N = 173 males), we first found that testosterone (vs. placebo) increased motivation to compete for status, but only in individuals with an unstable low status. A second part of the experiment, tailored to directly compare stable with unstable hierarchies, indicated that exogenous testosterone again increased competitive motivation in individuals with a low unstable status, but decreased competition behavior in men with low stable status. Additionally, exogenous testosterone increased motivation in those with a stable high status. Further analysis suggested that these effects were moderated by individuals' trait dominance, and genetic differences assessed by the androgen receptor (CAG-repeat) and dopamine transporter (DAT1) polymorphisms. Our study provides evidence that testosterone specifically boosts status-related motivation when there is an opportunity to improve one's social status. The findings contribute to our understanding of testosterone's causal role in status-seeking motivation in competition behavior, and indicate that testosterone adaptively increases our drive for high status in a context-dependent manner. We discuss potential neurobiological pathways through which testosterone may attain these effects on behavior.

中文翻译：

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外源性睾酮增加了社会地位不稳定的男性寻求地位的动机

睾酮与诸如竞争之类的寻求地位的行为有关，这可能取决于一个人是赢得还是失去地位，也取决于一个人地位的稳定性。我们检查了 (1) 睾酮管理在多大程度上影响了高或低级别男性在重复社会竞争中的竞争行为，以及 (2) 这种关系是否如状态不稳定假设所预测的那样受到等级稳定性的调节。在健康男性参与者（N = 173 名男性）中使用真正的基于努力的设计，我们首先发现睾酮（与安慰剂相比）增加了竞争地位的动力，但仅限于地位不稳定的个体。实验的第二部分，专门用于直接比较稳定和不稳定的层次结构，表明外源性睾酮再次增加了低不稳定状态个体的竞争动机，但降低了低稳定状态男性的竞争行为。此外，外源性睾酮增加了那些地位稳定的人的动力。进一步的分析表明，这些影响受到个体特征优势以及通过雄激素受体（CAG-重复）和多巴胺转运蛋白（DAT1）多态性评估的遗传差异的调节。我们的研究提供的证据表明，当有机会改善一个人的社会地位时，睾丸激素会特别提高与地位相关的动机。这些发现有助于我们理解睾酮在竞争行为中寻求地位的动机中的因果作用，并表明睾丸激素以一种依赖于上下文的方式适应性地增加了我们追求高地位的动力。我们讨论了潜在的神经生物学途径，通过这些途径，睾酮可以对行为产生这些影响。