No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy • Hacker News Board

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#131

Post by BonerBoi420 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:02 AM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #72

bonerman69 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing estrogen blood levels will literally cause any male-sex person to become more empathetic via oxytocin...

Probably better to say "assigned male at birth" -- I'm not genetically male, but everyone assumed I was until I got tested after transitioning. The best medically relevant definitions are "person on testosterone", "person on estrogen" etc. There is a lot of suspicion that things like estrogen/androgen receptor binding affinity play a big role in gender identity and brain development, and we haven't even scratched the…

you're wrong, boys have penises and girls have vaginas

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#132

Post by tomlock » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:03 AM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #90

pessimizer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including US culture 50 or more years ago, when most programmers were women.

I'm of the impression that this is a misconception. 50 years ago, "programmer" was a different job. Imagine if executives were just called secretaries now and that's a decent analogy for what I think happened to programmers and architects.

I'm of the impression that back in 1959 when COBOL was released, with a team of 7 designers with 3 women on it, based off the groundwork laid by Grace Hopper, that the technical skill required to be a programmer was actually much higher, and that the women involved in coding were making very technical decisions about that field.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#133

Post by goblin89 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:13 AM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #106

rozab wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still strong evidence that excess testosterone causes anger and other undesirable effects [0]. Why should there be a backlash when there is evidence? On the other hand, it has been an accepted truism for many decades that the female brain is less capable of many tasks, and I haven't seen firings and ruined reputations over this. The science of this is now being seriously questioned. [0] https://academic.oup.…

> anger and other undesirable effects. "other" could mean these from the linked article: > The growing literature on androgenic anabolic steroid (AAS) usage suggests that some users can develop bouts of aggression known as steroid rage, mood disturbance, hypomania, irritability, and depressive episodes (9–15). Whenever I think about ourselves, I think from an evolutionary perspective. All of the mentioned effects exi…

Why does anger exist?

Personally I can’t see how anger can be anything else but a manifestation of certain underlying fear as a defensive response. (That said, those emotions seem to be conventionally recognized as mostly unrelated.)

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#134

Post by blarg1 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:13 AM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #84

It's amazing that something so sexist could have been suggested without backlash. Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and reputations ruined. Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.

better analogy would be estrogen causing hysteria :)

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#135

Post by chr1 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:29 AM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #84

It's amazing that something so sexist could have been suggested without backlash. Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and reputations ruined. Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.

Maybe in part this is due to many men not considering it as a desirable human capability. If one considers reason to be much more important than emotion, strives to hide all displays of emotion, being emotionally stunted feels more like a compliment than offence.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#136

Post by ShinTakuya » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:32 AM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #84

It's amazing that something so sexist could have been suggested without backlash. Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and reputations ruined. Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.

I think we should be able to suggest either thing without backlash, as long as you don't say it's certain until it's proven.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#137

Post by Antoninus » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:33 AM UTC

blackflame7000 wrote: post #82

I think a lot more work needs to be done in quantifying "cognitive empathy" before we can begin to do studies like this. Their methodology for quantification of something so complex is extremely primitive.

You're right, neuroscience these days is too primitive.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#138

Post by taneq » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:41 AM UTC

goblin89 wrote: post #133

anon1m0us wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anger and other undesirable effects. "other" could mean these from the linked article: > The growing literature on androgenic anabolic steroid (AAS) usage suggests that some users can develop bouts of aggression known as steroid rage, mood disturbance, hypomania, irritability, and depressive episodes (9–15). Whenever I think about ourselves, I think from an evolutionary perspective. All of the mentioned effects exi…

Why does anger exist? Personally I can’t see how anger can be anything else but a manifestation of certain underlying fear as a defensive response. (That said, those emotions seem to be conventionally recognized as mostly unrelated.)

I'd like to see Yoda cite his sources on that "fear leads to anger" thing. This whole construction that it's impossible to react negatively to something without being motivated by fear is, IMO, unsubstantiated at best. It's entirely possible to dislike something or be irritated by it without fearing it.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#139

Post by astine » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:41 AM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #109

erikpukinskis wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your evidence there was no backlash? This kind of finding seems like the type of thing both MRAs and a majority of feminists¹ would object to. I can’t even see the title of the original paper since this one is paywalled. I was going to go try to quantify this “absence of backlash” you mentioned. ¹ It is sort of an interesting question, which majority of feminists that is. Some liberal, trans-inclusive, biologi…

My only evidence is that I didn't hear of one. Didn't even hear about the studies. Perhaps they just confirmed what everyone already thought or wanted to believe or the gender disparaged by the studies didn't care enough to raise a fuss. Whatever the reason. I did hear about the president of Harvard being fired though. I read about The Bell Curve. Damore. The list goes on and on. You must know what I'm talking about.…

For the record, I've definitely seen backlash against the 'male brain' hypothesis for autism, which is that this study is ultimately about. The guy who first proposed it was Simon Baron-Cohen who is a well known autism researcher and there were people, especially female autists who felt that they were being overlooked or compared to men, who complained about it. Some even accused of Baron-Cohen of bigotry of various sorts. I think the 'male brain' hypothesis has largely remained in the autism research sphere and so hasn't had as much visibility, which might explain why there isn't a huge 'cancel-culture' backlash. There needs to be a certain threshold of visibility before that kind of backlash can happen.

https://autistscorner.blogspot.com/2011/09/simon-baron-cohen...

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#140

Post by lazyguy2 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 3:47 AM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #84

It's amazing that something so sexist could have been suggested without backlash. Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and reputations ruined. Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.

It's not sexist to suggest that testosterone impacts the body and mind. Male hormones exist for a reason and one of those big reasons is to impact behavior in various ways, including sex drive.

What is sexist is assuming testosterone is responsible for autism and acting on that 'knowledge' without proof in some manner that impacts other people's lives.