Studiet undersøger sammenhængen mellem testosteron (T) niveauer og balancen mellem parring og forældreskab. Resultaterne viser, at gifte mænd, både med og uden børn, har lavere aften-T end ugifte mænd. For gifte mænd uden børn er højere spousal investering og mere tid med konen forbundet med lavere T-niveauer. Dette tyder på, at lavere T blandt fædre kan fremme forældreskabet ved at reducere konkurrencedygtig adfærd.
Titel på undersøgelse:
Marriage and Fatherhood Are Associated with Lower Testosterone in Males.
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Hele abstrakt på originalsprog:
In order to study the hormonal correlates of the tradeoff between mating and parenting effort in human males, we examined the salivary testosterone (T) levels of 58 Boston-area men who were either unmarried (n=29), married without children (n=14), or married with children (n=15). Additionally, we asked participants to complete a questionnaire that surveyed their demographic, marital, and parenting backgrounds. We tested the hypotheses that (1) T levels will be lower in married than in unmarried men and (2) married men with children will have lower T levels than unmarried men and married men without children. We also tested a series of hypotheses relating variation in parenting and spousal relationships to T. We found that married men with and without children had significantly lower evening T than unmarried men. No significant differences in T were found among the groups in morning samples. Among married men without children, higher scores on a “spousal investment” measure and more hours spent with a man’s wife on his last day off work were both associated with lower T levels. We suggest that lower T levels during the day among fathers may facilitate paternal care in humans by decreasing the likelihood that a father will engage in competitive and/or mating behavior.