Let me guess: they were all straight.
The added stress of homophobia might affect the results. I wonder what a study of testosterone levels in different areas and orientations would show.
Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
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Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#42It's odd that "low Testosterone levels" (as in "lower T levels compared to ...") is automatically considered to be something bad (by male readers). High T-levels are connected with higher susceptibility to inflammation f.x.
Low testosterone is pretty bad... fatigue, mental fog, low sex drive, weak muscles, ED, etc. I have low test and it's not something that I consider normal. The difference between low and high T is night and day. It greatly affects the well being.
Lower, not low.
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is that it's the former. In general, women are attracted to masculinity (assuming heterosexuality), a factor in which testosterone plays a large part.
Let them be attracted. Serves reproduction all right. Hence your evolutionary argument. But the study is about long-term relationships. I'd think social factors, cultural habits, and reflection play an important part there. It's not clear to me, that it's necessarily the former.
Is this study controled for age? Testosterone decreases with age, and the very definition of Long Term Relationship assumes that men in LTR are older than singles :)
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#44It's odd that "low Testosterone levels" (as in "lower T levels compared to ...") is automatically considered to be something bad (by male readers). High T-levels are connected with higher susceptibility to inflammation f.x.
that's because it is bad. men need normal levels of testosterone. anyone who tells you otherwise has another agenda they're pushing (take a wild guess).
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Low testosterone is pretty bad... fatigue, mental fog, low sex drive, weak muscles, ED, etc. I have low test and it's not something that I consider normal. The difference between low and high T is night and day. It greatly affects the well being.
so all the husbands in the world have weak muscles and mental fog ... ? :D that's why I wrote my comment precisely as I did. the article is not about low T levels but comparatively low T levels (comparing to single guys)
> so all the husbands in the world have weak muscles and mental fog ... ? :D
uh, yes, a lot of them do. it's just seen as 'normal' to be a lackadaisical limp-wristed fatass "man" these days.
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Peer-review is basically worthless, though.
Do you have any peer reviewed studies to support that statement?
Well there's this one...
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#47I have access to the article. This statement is key: "By increasing libido, higher T may encourage mateseeking behavior." Of course testosterone drops when you find a mate. You don't have to fight for one any more. They go on to show that it further decreases when you have children. Since virility is affected by T levels, it's a good hypothesis that having kids is likely a trigger to reduce the risk-seeking behavior…
A good way to check for whether or not a new piece of information is interesting is to ask, "Would I be surprised if the opposite happened?" Would you be surprised if the test subjects' testosterone was observed to be independent of relationship status?
That's actually a terrible way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#48New dating service idea. Testosterone tester.
Women kind of have one of these. They're able to identify males with high testosterone by looking at them and being near them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/mens-smell-testoste...
http://healthmad.com/mens-health/women-can-smell-testosteron...
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#49A lot of comments are missing a basic fact of how science works. In science we have a theory, make predictions, then stress test them. This is one study examining a theory which we have various lines of evidence for. It is not supposed to prove the theory - just test one prediction. It is not supposed to be the end of research on this topic. It is not supposed to be final. Criticizing it for any of those things is a…
> Criticizing it for any of those things is a demonstration that you do not understand how science is supposed to function. Good luck criticizing science when you forbade yourself to criticize pretty much all study shortcomings using those all-encompassing guidelines that all point to a single conclusion, i.e. "Don't criticize me, I'm just a prediction bro".
There are useful criticisms, and useless criticisms. It is easy to criticize studies for not being what you want them to be, but the exercise is useless. It is harder to criticize studies for failing to be what they are supposed to be, but the exercise is far more useful.
Here are some valid criticisms of studies. It doesn't clearly state the theory. It doesn't clearly state the prediction. It doesn't actually test what it tries to test. It doesn't have references to where you can learn more about the theory. It fails to refer to important evidence in the literature that it should have. It doesn't describe the limitations of the design. It doesn't have suggestions about how to better follow up on the result.
In the end a study is supposed to be one point in a grand logical argument that eventually comes to a conclusion about said theory. It should be criticized based whether it is a well-made point, not on whether it is a complete argument.
Re: Men in committed, romantic relationships have lower testosterone
#50A lot of comments are missing a basic fact of how science works. In science we have a theory, make predictions, then stress test them. This is one study examining a theory which we have various lines of evidence for. It is not supposed to prove the theory - just test one prediction. It is not supposed to be the end of research on this topic. It is not supposed to be final. Criticizing it for any of those things is a…
Good luck with testing a psychology theory.
The fundamental problem with testing psychology was explained by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It is that no theory has (yet) proven so compelling that everyone can agree on it. And that is the case because the subject is intrinsically complex.
That said, despite its limitations and current failures, we do not have a better intellectual process than science to study such questions.