Men with increased testosterone levels tend to be more impulsive.

Testosterone is a hormone with a reputation for being associated with masculinity. However, according to new findings, testosterone and impulsivity are directly proportional.

Two scientists, Gideon Nave (University of Pennsylvania, USA) and Amos Nadler (Western University, Canada), examined the effect of this hormone on the computational abilities of volunteers participating in the experiment and published in the scientific journal Psychological Science that testosterone caused men to produce… incorrect results.

Researchers brought 243 male university students to their lab. The volunteers were asked to remove their shirts and apply a layer of gel to their chests and shoulders.

All the gel samples given to the volunteers looked and smelled similar. However, 125 of them received a gel containing testosterone, while the remaining 118 received a gel without this hormone. The participants in the experiment were not informed of this difference.

After four hours, by which time the testosterone-containing gel had been absorbed into the bloodstream at its highest level and was thought to influence decision-making, each student was asked a series of questions with a small cash reward for each correct answer. Three of the questions were designed with "tricks" to lead to incorrect answers. The others simply required precise arithmetic skills.

The results showed that volunteers using the testosterone gel answered tricky, "trick" questions about 20% less effectively than those using the non-testosterone gel. However, for questions requiring only basic arithmetic skills, the two groups had similar correct answers.

According to the researchers, that's a fairly large gap from an academic standpoint.

The main difference may be due to testosterone levels appearing to inhibit activity in the prefrontal lobe of the brain, according to a previous finding in this study.

"The prefrontal cortex is the executive part of the brain," Dr. Nadler explains. "Instead of being able to make decisions at their best, testosterone may cause you to lose this ability."

Scientists say that hasty answers to mathematical problems are characteristic manifestations of impulsiveness and impatience.

For now, what scientists have shown through their experiments might make women feel a sense of satisfaction in front of men. However, men could also use this to explain their impulsiveness by blaming it on… testosterone.

"Testosterone can take control of reason," observes Professor Gideon Nave, a marketing lecturer at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and an expert involved in this research.

This could also serve as a warning to those who believe advertisements that claim, "Want to get better in bed?" or praise the benefits of testosterone in bodybuilding.

There have been numerous legal allegations against testosterone supplements, claiming that excessive use in men—who already have significantly higher levels of this hormone than women—can damage the cardiovascular system and cause numerous other side effects.

While scientists Nave and Nadler pointed out some negative aspects of testosterone, they also argued that while some situations require cognitive calculation, in other cases testosterone is useful, for example, when immediate "fight or flight" decisions are needed.

"Stimulating instinctive responses with testosterone can create the necessary flexibility in situations where success depends on instinct, such as during intercourse," the study suggests.

"There is no clear right or wrong," Dr. Nave observed, "but the experiments we conducted have shown that, in the case of mathematics, there is a clear right or wrong."

According to TTO