As per the Dual Hormone Hypothesis ( Mehta and Josephs, 2010), we test both the direct effect of hair testosterone concentrations on risk taking and its interaction effect with hair cortisol concentrations. Hair samples should provide a stronger test of the relationship between baseline levels of testosterone and risk taking, as hair samples indicate average fluctuating testosterone levels across 3 months and thus filter out contextual noise in hormone measurements. In the current study we measure testosterone using a recently developed alternative assay procedure in which hormone levels are assayed from hair samples. However, studies that aim to test for relationships between baseline endogenous testosterone levels are potentially confounded by these same contextually bound fluctuations when using saliva samples. This lends itself to experimental studies seeking to test the contextual role of fluctuations in testosterone on behavior. The majority of studies exploring the relationships between testosterone and risk taking have measured state-based levels of testosterone via saliva samples. One explanation for these inconsistencies could be the failure to distinguish between measurements of state-based levels of testosterone and the measurement of more trait-like (baseline) levels of testosterone. Comparing our results to those reported in the existing literature we speculate that behavioral correlates of testosterone such as direct effects on risk taking may be more sensitive to state-based fluctuations than baseline levels of testosterone.Īlthough studies have documented a positive relationship between testosterone and risky economic decisions, the evidence has been inconsistent, with linear ( Apicella et al., 2008), non-linear ( Stanton et al., 2011) and null relationships ( Zethraeus et al., 2009). Our results lend support to the suggestion that endogenous testosterone and 2D:4D ratio are unrelated and might then exert diverging activating vs. Hair testosterone concentrations were positively related to risk taking when levels of hair cortisol concentrations were low, in men. Partially consistent with the Dual Hormone Hypothesis, we did find evidence for the interacting effect of testosterone and cortisol on risk taking but only in men.
No relationships with overconfidence emerged. While our sample size for males was less than ideal, our results revealed no evidence for a relationship between hair testosterone concentrations, 2D:4D ratios and risk taking. A total of 162 (53 male) participants provided a 3 cm sample of hair, a scanned image of their right and left hands from which we determined 2D:4D ratios, and completed measures of overconfidence and behavioral risk taking.
Using a recently developed alternative assay procedure to measure hormone levels from hair samples, we examined the relationships between testosterone, cortisol, 2D:4D ratio, overconfidence and risk taking. 4Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle, United Kingdom.3Department of Management & Organization, School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.2Department of Industrial Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands.1Department of Leadership and Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.Richard Ronay 1*, Leander van der Meij 2, Janneke K.
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