Andrew Huberman· PhD
testosterone serves to amplify pre-existing tendencies and behaviors, effort & competition—even if that competition involves no aggression at all.
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testosterone serves to amplify pre-existing tendencies and behaviors, effort & competition—even if that competition involves no aggression at all.
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Testosterone increases the amplitude of existing traits in the domain of competition
It also can exacerbate pre-existing psychological phenotypes including altruistic behavior.
when it comes to motivated strong behaviors, what testosterone does is make you more of whatever you already are. And that to me, sexual arousal, libido, aggressiveness, spontaneous aggression, reactive aggression, things of that sort. It's upping the volume of things that are already strongly there.
increasing testosterone merely exacerbates existing features of people. So the jerks become bigger jerks, kind people become even more kind in general
So if somebody is already aggressive, giving them testosterone will have the tendency to make them more aggressive. If somebody however is very benevolent and altruistic, giving them testosterone will make them more benevolent and altruistic, at least up to a point.
if you give people exogenous testosterone, it tends to make them more of the way they were before. If they were a jerk before, they'll become more of a jerk, if they were very altruistic, they'll become more altruistic.
the major effect of testosterone in men and women is not libido per se and it's not aggression per se it tends to make people more like them if you're a jerk you're going become more of a jerk if you're calm you're become more calm if you're kind you're GNA I don't know if you become Kinder but there actually been studies of altruistic behavior and administration of testosterone by nasal spray or other means and frankly people will become more they'll become competitively altruistic
testosterone tends to exacerbate existing traits in people it doesn't turn nice people into jerks or um jerks into nice people but rather it turns jerks into Super jerks and nice people into super nice people
what testosterone does is make you more of whatever you already are in that domain. Sexual arousal, libido, aggressiveness, spontaneous aggression, reactive aggression, things of that sort. It's upping the volume of things that are already strongly there.