Single-dose testosterone administration increases preference for status goods

From the abstract “... testosterone increases positive attitudes toward positional goods when they are described as status-enhancing, but not when they are described as power-enhancing or high in quality.”

I would think power-enhancing things would improve one’s ability to achieve social dominance, but the effect they uncovered here seems to be even more crude and instead only has effect on stimulating a desire for immediate “improved” perception.

>testosterone increases positive attitudes toward positional goods when they are described as status-enhancing, but not when they are described as power-enhancing.

I'm not sure what this means. I thought status was a power-enhancing attribute. And that that was the reason people want it.

Hmm, I think they would target the snacks towards low-testosterone men, to increase their desire for status. The men already in the store are likely already high-testosterone. Serving the snacks in their stores would be preaching to the choir.

I suspect this stereotype may have a signal-to-noise problem. Consider that many men who buy a corvette at mid-life may have wanted one since their childhood, and mid-life happened to be the earliest point at which they could afford one.

Following our nature is easy, we just do it naturally. Opposing our baser instincts is hard, so a lot of people don't. The greatest leap as a species we can take is if we can make it a social imperative to act against those urges, but in today's corporate-controlled world, our "corporate overlords" want us to react on instinct to purchase expensive, wasteful, and useless items and services. Until we figure out how to hold a corporation to the same ethics and morals we hold individuals, that won't happen.

When you think about it though, for all our sophistication we...

>Can only hold ~7 unique items in mind

>Have relatively low resolution memory, and instead of just seeing it like that, unsure/unknown details are filled in almost arbitrarily

>Are absolutely entirely single threaded - best form of multitasking is quick switching at a rate that obscures the switching - switching is still occurring though and is observable

>Use language with lots of complexity maybe, but in simple algorithmic/programmed ways (grammer isn't straightforward, but lots of typical interactions are basically algorithms we naturally act out)

We are a collection of narrow intelligences which are quite powerful, and when combined result in a working general intelligence (to different degrees of success). That general intelligence sees the power of the narrow bits that make it up and proclaims "wow, I am complex and powerful" when its really just the cobbled together result.

No. People are way more complex than that.

It can be very tempting to jump to superficial conclusions by reading these publications e.g. imagine a direct correlation between testosterone and need for status.

Instead there can be a million confounding variable that depend on psychology and society.

Don't let your wife do roids unless you have plenty of cash for Prada and Channel purses and bottles of Moët '99.

Edit: Looks like this effects happen in men only.