Why men are impulsive
Testosterone makes men less likely to think before they act, a new study has found. Researchers gave 243 mostly college-age male volunteers a dose of testosterone gel or a placebo, then asked them to complete a short, untimed test that assessed their cognitive reflection. Questions included this heads cratcher: “A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?” The incorrect “gut” response is 10 cents; the correct answer, which people
generally come to only after a bit of thought, is 5 cents. The men who received testosterone answered about 20 percent fewer questions correctly in the tests—which were coupled with a basic math task to control for arithmetic skills—than those in the placebo group. They also gave their answers more hastily. Report co-author Colin Camerer, a behavioral economist at the California Institute of Technology, says this disparity may be because testosterone boosts confidence, which could eliminate
the self-doubt that prompts people to reevaluate their decisions. “The testosterone is either inhibiting the process of mentally checking your work,” he tells ScienceDaily .com, “or increasing the intuitive feeling that ‘I’m definitely right.’”
