{"schemaVersion":1,"updated":"2026-08-31","nodes":[{"id":"testosterone","slug":"testosterone","name":"Testosterone","shortName":"T","layer":"biology","summary":"Androgen produced by the HPG axis. Basal levels and acute contest reactivity are not the same construct.","detail":"Total and free testosterone are the most-cited hormones in status and risk folklore. Basal T is a slow trait-like signal; contest T is a minutes-to-hours state. Folk models collapse them into 'more T = more dominance'. The literature treats them separately, and often finds the state change more predictive than the trait.","aliases":["T","serum testosterone","androgen"],"unit":"nmol/L (total) or pg/mL (free)","alsoSearch":["free testosterone","SHBG","HPG axis"]},{"id":"cortisol","slug":"cortisol","name":"Cortisol","shortName":"Cortisol","layer":"biology","summary":"Glucocorticoid of the HPA axis. Marks threat, metabolic load, and social evaluation stress.","detail":"Cortisol is not 'the stress hormone' in a cartoon sense. It indexes HPA activation under social-evaluative threat, sleep loss, illness, and circadian phase. In the dual-hormone hypothesis it is the brake: high cortisol is proposed to block or reverse testosterone's link to status-seeking.","aliases":["glucocorticoid","HPA"],"unit":"nmol/L","alsoSearch":["CAR","chronic stress"]},{"id":"t-c-ratio","slug":"t-c-ratio","name":"Testosterone / cortisol ratio","shortName":"T/C","layer":"biology","summary":"Composite used as a proxy for dual-hormone status. A ratio is not a mechanism.","detail":"The T/C ratio appears in popular writing as if it were a single causal knob. It is a derived index. Any association can be driven by T, by cortisol, or by their interaction. Prefer reporting the interaction over the ratio unless the paper pre-registered the ratio.","aliases":["T:C","dual-hormone index"],"unit":"unitless ratio","alsoSearch":["dual-hormone"]},{"id":"vitamin-d","slug":"vitamin-d","name":"25-hydroxyvitamin D","shortName":"25(OH)D","layer":"biology","summary":"Circulating vitamin D status. Strongly confounded by time outdoors, latitude, adiposity, and wealth.","detail":"Observational catalogs link 25(OH)D to almost every chronic disease and to socioeconomic markers. Mendelian randomization and large RCTs (VITAL) have collapsed most of those claims. Correcting clinical deficiency is a medical act. Treating 25(OH)D as an economic or leadership lever is not supported.","aliases":["vitamin D","calcidiol"],"unit":"nmol/L or ng/mL","alsoSearch":["VDR","sunshine vitamin"]},{"id":"dhea-s","slug":"dhea-s","name":"DHEA-S","shortName":"DHEA-S","layer":"biology","summary":"Adrenal androgen often bundled into 'optimization' panels. Causal behavioral evidence is thin.","detail":"DHEA-S declines with age and correlates with perceived vitality in some observational series. Supplementation trials do not support a reliable effect on status, cognition, or income. Treat it as a biomarker looking for a job.","aliases":["DHEAS","dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate"],"unit":"μmol/L","alsoSearch":["adrenal androgen"]},{"id":"estradiol","slug":"estradiol","name":"Estradiol","shortName":"E2","layer":"biology","summary":"Primary estrogen. Relevant to cycle-phase behavior research and to aromatization from testosterone.","detail":"Estradiol is not a side character in male physiology: aromatization links T to E2. Cycle-phase mate-preference effects are contested after the replication wave. Do not import a single-hormone story from either sex.","aliases":["E2","estrogen"],"unit":"pmol/L","alsoSearch":["aromatase"]},{"id":"ferritin","slug":"ferritin","name":"Ferritin","shortName":"Ferritin","layer":"biology","summary":"Iron store. Deficiency impairs cognition and work capacity; excess is not a performance upgrade.","detail":"Iron-deficiency anemia has a clear clinical path to fatigue and cognitive slowing. That is not a license to treat high ferritin as an executive-function stack. The interesting causal question is correction of deficit, not megadosing.","aliases":["iron stores"],"unit":"μg/L","alsoSearch":["anemia","iron"]},{"id":"insulin-resistance","slug":"insulin-resistance","name":"Insulin resistance (HOMA-IR)","shortName":"HOMA-IR","layer":"biology","summary":"Metabolic inflexibility proxy. Crosses into mood, energy, and long-run health costs.","detail":"HOMA-IR is an observational workhorse. Lifestyle interventions move it. Direct arrows from HOMA-IR to income or mate choice are almost always confounded by education, BMI, and health-care access.","aliases":["HOMA-IR","insulin"],"unit":"HOMA-IR units","alsoSearch":["metabolic syndrome"]},{"id":"risk-tolerance","slug":"risk-tolerance","name":"Economic risk tolerance","shortName":"Risk","layer":"psychology","summary":"Preference over lotteries, usually measured with Holt–Laury or similar choice lists.","detail":"Risk tolerance in the lab is not the same as 'lives dangerously'. Holt and Laury (2002) gave the field a replicable multiple-price list. Hormonal links to that list are mixed; income and gender composition of the sample matter more than most Twitter threads admit.","aliases":["risk aversion","lottery convexity"],"unit":"Holt–Laury switch point","alsoSearch":["prospect theory"]},{"id":"status-seeking","slug":"status-seeking","name":"Status seeking","shortName":"Status","layer":"psychology","summary":"Motivation to gain or defend rank. Can be pursued via dominance or prestige.","detail":"Status seeking is the latent that dual-hormone papers try to predict. It is not aggression. Henrich and Gil-White split the strategy space: force versus freely conferred deference. Collapsing both into 'alpha' is a measurement error.","aliases":["dominance motivation","rank pursuit"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["hierarchy","ambition"]},{"id":"dominance-strategy","slug":"dominance-strategy","name":"Dominance strategy","shortName":"Dominance","layer":"psychology","summary":"Rank via coercion, intimidation, or formal power. Costly when institutions punish it.","detail":"Dominance works in zero-sum contests and weak-institution settings. In knowledge work it often backfires. Testosterone folklore is almost entirely a dominance story; prestige is the missing half.","aliases":["coercive rank"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["aggression","intimidation"]},{"id":"prestige-strategy","slug":"prestige-strategy","name":"Prestige strategy","shortName":"Prestige","layer":"psychology","summary":"Rank via skill, knowledge, or valued contribution. Others copy you voluntarily.","detail":"Henrich and Gil-White (2001) argued that prestige is an evolved pathway for cultural learning: we defer to those worth copying. It predicts different endocrine and network signatures than dominance. Most biohacking content never mentions it.","aliases":["freely conferred status"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["expertise","cultural learning"]},{"id":"leadership-effectiveness","slug":"leadership-effectiveness","name":"Leadership effectiveness","shortName":"Leadership","layer":"psychology","summary":"Rated or revealed ability to coordinate a group. Not the same as being chosen as leader.","detail":"Mehta and Josephs used observer ratings of leader-like behavior in a lab task. That is not CEO performance, promotion velocity, or founder outcomes. The construct leap from 20-minute group tasks to 'success' is where folklore is born.","aliases":["leader emergence"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["managerial performance"]},{"id":"ultimatum-rejection","slug":"ultimatum-rejection","name":"Ultimatum rejection","shortName":"UG reject","layer":"psychology","summary":"Willingness to destroy surplus rather than accept an unfair split. A fairness-and-status task.","detail":"The ultimatum game is the workhorse of social neuroendocrinology. Rejection is not 'aggression' in any simple sense; it can be a status-maintenance move. Exogenous T results disagree across labs, sexes, and belief-about-treatment designs.","aliases":["ultimatum game","fairness punishment"],"unit":"rejection rate or minimum acceptable offer","alsoSearch":["bargaining"]},{"id":"sociosexuality","slug":"sociosexuality","name":"Sociosexuality (SOI-R)","shortName":"SOI-R","layer":"psychology","summary":"Orientation toward uncommitted sex. Measured with Penke and Asendorpf's revised inventory.","detail":"SOI-R separates behavior, attitude, and desire. It is one of the few psychometrics in this atlas with a stable instrument. Hormonal and income correlates exist; they are not destiny and they are sex-differentiated in most samples.","aliases":["SOI","unrestricted mating"],"unit":"SOI-R score","alsoSearch":["mating strategy"]},{"id":"cognitive-performance","slug":"cognitive-performance","name":"Cognitive performance","shortName":"Cognition","layer":"psychology","summary":"Attention, memory, and processing speed under a named task. Not IQ-as-destiny and not a CEO score.","detail":"This atlas uses cognitive performance for identified deficit-correction arrows (iron, sleep) and refuses to let it smuggle status or income. A lab task is not a promotion.","aliases":["attention","working memory"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["processing speed","fatigue"]},{"id":"youth-fertility-preference","slug":"youth-fertility-preference","name":"Youth / fertility preference in partners","shortName":"Youth pref.","layer":"psychology","summary":"Stated or revealed preference for younger or higher-fertility-cue partners.","detail":"Cross-cultural inventories (Buss 1989) find a male-typical tilt toward youth cues. Speed-dating work shows the tilt is real in revealed choice but is moderated by the chooser's own market position and by the attribute set on the table.","aliases":["age preference","fertility cues"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["physical attractiveness"]},{"id":"hypergamy-preference","slug":"hypergamy-preference","name":"Income hypergamy preference","shortName":"Hypergamy","layer":"psychology","summary":"Preference for a partner with equal or higher economic rank. Historically female-typical in surveys.","detail":"The modern quantitative nuance is not 'women want richer men, period'. As women's own income and education rise, strict economic hypergamy yields to educational and cultural homogamy — similarity in cognitive class and lifestyle — provided the safety floor is met (Fisman et al. 2006 and later matching studies).","aliases":["marrying up","status hypergamy"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["homogamy","assortative mating"]},{"id":"educational-homogamy","slug":"educational-homogamy","name":"Educational homogamy","shortName":"Homogamy","layer":"psychology","summary":"Assortative mating on education and cognitive class. The quiet successor to strict income hypergamy.","detail":"In high-education markets, couples match on degree and field more tightly than on raw income. That is an incentive story (shared production of household public goods) as much as a biological one.","aliases":["assortative mating"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["matching"]},{"id":"disposable-income","slug":"disposable-income","name":"Disposable income","shortName":"Income","layer":"ses","summary":"Flow of resources after tax. Buys time, health inputs, and mating-market position.","detail":"Income is the master confounder of this atlas. It buys supplements, gym time, sleep, outdoor leisure, private medicine, and dating-app filters. Any observational arrow from a purchasable input to 'success' must first survive income.","aliases":["earnings","wage"],"unit":"currency / year","alsoSearch":["SES"]},{"id":"net-worth","slug":"net-worth","name":"Net worth","shortName":"Wealth","layer":"ses","summary":"Stock of assets minus liabilities. Different incentive object from income.","detail":"Wealth buffers risk and changes mate-search time horizons. Papers that use income as a stand-in for wealth are measuring the wrong stock. Inheritance further breaks any simple biology-to-money arrow.","aliases":["wealth","assets"],"unit":"currency","alsoSearch":["patrimony"]},{"id":"education","slug":"education","name":"Educational attainment","shortName":"Education","layer":"ses","summary":"Years or credentials. Confounds health behavior, income, and almost every biomarker.","detail":"Education is both a cause (health literacy, time preference) and a collider (healthy, conscientious people stay in school). Conditioning on it blindly can open or close backdoors depending on the query.","aliases":["schooling","credentials"],"unit":"years or ISCED level","alsoSearch":["human capital"]},{"id":"formal-power","slug":"formal-power","name":"Formal organizational power","shortName":"Power","layer":"ses","summary":"Command over people or budgets inside an institution.","detail":"Power is not prestige and not income. A senior civil servant and a well-paid IC have different hormones-and-behavior problems. Lab 'leadership' tasks are a long walk from this node.","aliases":["authority","managerial rank"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["hierarchy position"]},{"id":"social-capital","slug":"social-capital","name":"Social capital","shortName":"Network","layer":"ses","summary":"Density and quality of a person's network. A status technology that is not hormonal.","detail":"Network position predicts job finding, mate meeting, and health. It is a classic omitted variable in supplement-and-success studies: people with rich networks both earn more and buy more wellness.","aliases":["network density","weak ties"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["Granovetter"]},{"id":"employment-status","slug":"employment-status","name":"Employment status","shortName":"Employment","layer":"ses","summary":"In work or not. The outcome most often falsely credited to vitamins.","detail":"Unemployment is a health shock and a selection process. Observational papers that find supplement users 'less unemployed' are almost always looking at Healthy User Bias wearing a lab coat.","aliases":["job holding"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["unemployment"]},{"id":"vitamin-supplementation","slug":"vitamin-supplementation","name":"Vitamin / mineral supplementation","shortName":"Vitamins","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"Multivitamins, B-complex, D pills. Purchasable health input.","detail":"Use is a marker of health-seeking and of disposable income. Causal effects on economic outcomes collapse after SES controls, except where a clinical deficiency is being corrected (B12, iron, 25(OH)D in the truly deficient).","aliases":["multivitamin","micronutrient pills"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["B12","folate"]},{"id":"omega3-supplementation","slug":"omega3-supplementation","name":"Omega-3 supplementation","shortName":"Omega-3","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"Fish-oil and algal DHA/EPA. Another healthy-user magnet.","detail":"Cardiometabolic RCTs are mixed-to-modest. Links from omega-3 bottles to promotions or unemployment are not causal. People who buy fish oil already look like the people who keep jobs.","aliases":["fish oil","DHA","EPA"],"unit":"mg/day EPA+DHA","alsoSearch":["PUFA"]},{"id":"resistance-training","slug":"resistance-training","name":"Resistance training","shortName":"Lifting","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"Progressive strength work. Moves body composition; T responses are acute and small at rest.","detail":"Training raises acute T and GH, improves insulin sensitivity, and changes how others read your body. Chronic basal T elevation in eugonadal adults is not a reliable training effect. The social signal may matter more than the ng/dL.","aliases":["strength training","weights"],"unit":"sessions / week","alsoSearch":["hypertrophy"]},{"id":"sleep-hygiene","slug":"sleep-hygiene","name":"Sleep duration and regularity","shortName":"Sleep","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"The cheapest endocrine intervention that actually works.","detail":"Partial sleep restriction raises evening cortisol, lowers next-day T in men, and wrecks insulin sensitivity within nights. Unlike most supplements, the direction here is not an artifact of who can afford a Whoop.","aliases":["sleep restriction","circadian"],"unit":"hours / night","alsoSearch":["insomnia"]},{"id":"outdoor-time","slug":"outdoor-time","name":"Time outdoors","shortName":"Outdoors","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"UV-B exposure, movement, and a SES-coded leisure habit.","detail":"Outdoor time is the hidden common cause of 25(OH)D and of 'having a life that looks healthy'. Desk-bound high earners in high latitudes can be rich and deficient; outdoor workers can be poorer and replete. That is why D is a terrible SES instrument.","aliases":["sun exposure","UV-B"],"unit":"hours / day","alsoSearch":["latitude"]},{"id":"alcohol-intake","slug":"alcohol-intake","name":"Alcohol intake","shortName":"Alcohol","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"Dose-dependent endocrine and decision disruptor.","detail":"Heavy use lowers T, fragments sleep, and taxes next-day risk and status behavior. Light use is entangled with sociability and class. Do not draw a straight line from 'a drink' to leadership.","aliases":["ethanol"],"unit":"units / week","alsoSearch":["AUD"]},{"id":"ultraprocessed-food","slug":"ultraprocessed-food","name":"Ultra-processed food intake","shortName":"UPF","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"Diet quality marker. Tracks income, time poverty, and metabolic load.","detail":"UPF is both a cause of metabolic damage in feeding trials and a SES symptom. Using it as a moral explanation for other people's hormones skips the budget constraint.","aliases":["junk food","NOVA 4"],"unit":"% of energy","alsoSearch":["diet quality"]},{"id":"oxytocin","slug":"oxytocin","name":"Oxytocin","shortName":"OT","layer":"biology","summary":"Neuropeptide sold as the trust hormone. The registered replication of the 2005 Nature RCT did not find the main effect.","detail":"Intranasal oxytocin was the 2010s shortcut from a nasal spray to social capital. Kosfeld et al. (2005) reported higher trust-game transfers after OT. Later reviews and a 2020 registered replication (Declerck et al., including original authors) did not recover the headline effect under the original minimal-social-contact condition. Treat OT as a molecule with a replication file, not as a management tool.","aliases":["OT","intranasal oxytocin"],"unit":"IU (intranasal) or pg/mL (plasma)","alsoSearch":["trust game","neuropeptide"]},{"id":"power-pose","slug":"power-pose","name":"Expansive posture (power pose)","shortName":"Power pose","layer":"lifestyle","summary":"Two minutes of expansive stance, claimed to raise T, cut cortisol, and lift risk-taking. The larger replication did not.","detail":"Carney, Cuddy, and Yap (2010) assigned 42 people to expansive versus contractive poses and reported neuroendocrine and risk effects. Ranehill et al. (2015) ran 200 people and found no hormone or risk change. Simmons and Simonsohn (2017) p-curved the supportive set and found it consistent with selective reporting. The TED talk is not an identification strategy.","aliases":["power posing","expansive posture","postural feedback"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["Cuddy","wonder woman pose"]},{"id":"interpersonal-trust","slug":"interpersonal-trust","name":"Interpersonal trust","shortName":"Trust","layer":"psychology","summary":"Willingness to transfer resources to a stranger who can keep them. The trust-game object, not a vibe.","detail":"In the investment/trust game the first mover sends money that is multiplied; the second mover can return some or none. Transfers are the usual behavioral measure of trust. They are not the same as self-reported agreeableness, oxytocin plasma, or 'psychological safety' at work.","aliases":["trust-game transfer","investor transfer"],"unit":"currency units sent","alsoSearch":["trust game","Berg game"]},{"id":"contest-outcome","slug":"contest-outcome","name":"Contest outcome (win / loss)","shortName":"Win/loss","layer":"psychology","summary":"Who won the last status-relevant contest. The trigger in winner–loser models.","detail":"Mazur's biosocial model says victory raises T and defeat lowers it, which then biases the next contest. Meta-analyses find a clearer effect in the field than in sterile labs, and a smaller effect than pop-science implies.","aliases":["victory","defeat"],"unit":null,"alsoSearch":["competition"]}],"edges":[{"id":"e-t-status-dual","sourceId":"testosterone","targetId":"status-seeking","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"contested","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Interaction: T predicts status-seeking mainly when cortisol is low."},"n":null,"summary":"Basal T is not a leadership switch. The dual-hormone claim is an interaction, and the interaction is small and contested.","mechanism":"Mehta and Josephs (2010) reported that T related to dominant leadership behavior and to re-entering competition only at low cortisol. High cortisol blocked or reversed the slope. The proposed mechanism is HPG–HPA crosstalk: glucocorticoids inhibit androgen signaling and bias the animal toward withdrawal under threat.","caveats":"Not an RCT of T. Later meta-analytic work finds a small, heterogeneous effect with publication-bias risk. Lab 'leadership' is not organizational power. Labeling this causal_direct is generous: it is the best causal *story* in the file, not a settled identification.","confounders":["cortisol","contest-outcome","formal-power"],"paperIds":["p-mehta-josephs-2010","p-mehta-prasad-2015","p-geniole-2020"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-cortisol-moderates-t","sourceId":"cortisol","targetId":"leadership-effectiveness","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"High cortisol is the proposed brake on T-linked dominance."},"n":null,"summary":"High cortisol is the condition under which 'high T = leader' fails. The internet quote drops this term.","mechanism":"Social-evaluative threat upregulates HPA. In that state, T no longer tracks assertive, leader-like behavior and can track erratic or withdrawn responses instead. Carré and Olmstead emphasize contest-induced T change on top of this basal interaction.","caveats":"Cortisol is time-of-day and context sensitive. A single afternoon assay is a noisy moderator. Chronic vs acute cortisol are different questions.","confounders":["sleep-hygiene","contest-outcome"],"paperIds":["p-mehta-josephs-2010","p-carre-olmstead-2015"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-win-testosterone","sourceId":"contest-outcome","targetId":"testosterone","relation":"feedback","direction":"forward","methodology":"longitudinal","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"cohens_d","value":0.2,"note":"Winner–loser T difference is small; clearer in field than lab (updated metas)."},"n":null,"summary":"Winning a meaningful contest raises T relative to losing. That T change then colors the next contest. A loop, not an arrow.","mechanism":"Mazur and Booth's biosocial model: T rises in anticipation of a challenge and diverges after the result — up for winners, down for losers — which then biases willingness to re-enter. Booth et al. (1989) saw it in tennis; later metas shrink but do not erase the field effect.","caveats":"Tiny early N. Laboratory effects are often near zero. Mood about the win, home advantage, and cortisol all moderate the delta. Women are under-studied in the classic papers.","confounders":["cortisol","status-seeking"],"paperIds":["p-mazur-booth-1998","p-booth-1989","p-carre-olmstead-2015"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-t-status-feedback","sourceId":"testosterone","targetId":"contest-outcome","relation":"feedback","direction":"forward","methodology":"longitudinal","confidence":"low","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Basal T weakly predicts contest entry; the sharper arrow is T change after the result."},"n":null,"summary":"The other half of the loop: higher T states make another challenge more likely. Evidence is thinner than the win→T half.","mechanism":"If T is a status-seeking hormone, people in a high-T state should pick fights they can win. Human evidence for this direction is mixed and context-bound. Do not draw it as thick as the winner effect.","caveats":"Selection: people who enter contests already differ. Identification of this direction needs panel designs or exogenous T, not a single saliva kit.","confounders":["status-seeking","formal-power"],"paperIds":["p-mazur-booth-1998","p-carre-olmstead-2015"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-t-ultimatum-rct","sourceId":"testosterone","targetId":"ultimatum-rejection","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"contested","effect":{"metric":"percent_change","value":null,"note":"Eisenegger: T increased fair offers in women. Zak: T decreased male generosity. Cueva: null on male rejections."},"n":121,"summary":"Exogenous T changes bargaining — but not in the folk direction, and not in every lab.","mechanism":"The brief's 'Camerer et al.' pointer is a misattribution. The Nature RCT is Eisenegger, Naef, Snozzi, Heinrichs, and Fehr (2010): T made women's proposals *fairer*. Belief that one got T made them *less* fair. Zak (2009) found less male generosity. Cueva et al. (2017) found no rejection-rate effect in men. The identified claim is 'T is not the aggression potion'; the signed effect on rejection is not settled.","caveats":"Different sexes, doses, timings, and roles (proposer vs responder). A 2020s reader should present the disagreement, not pick a camp. Camerer is a reproducibility author, not the T-ultimatum experimenter.","confounders":[],"paperIds":["p-eisenegger-2010","p-zak-2009","p-cueva-2017"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-income-youth-pref","sourceId":"disposable-income","targetId":"youth-fertility-preference","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Men with more resources state and reveal stronger youth/attractiveness weights; not an identified biological imperative."},"n":10047,"summary":"Richer men can act on a preference that poorer men also often hold. Money changes the feasible set, not necessarily the utility function.","mechanism":"Buss (1989) documents a male-typical stated preference for youth cues. Fisman et al. show attractiveness weights in revealed speed-dating choice. Neither paper identifies a causal income→preference shift that survives market-position controls. The honest edge is: income *expresses* the preference.","caveats":"Stated ≠ revealed. Speed-dating samples are students and young professionals. Cross-cultural surveys are not RCTs of cash transfers.","confounders":["education","formal-power"],"paperIds":["p-buss-1989","p-fisman-2006"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-income-hypergamy","sourceId":"disposable-income","targetId":"hypergamy-preference","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Women's preference for affluent partners is real in Fisman; it is not invariant to their own income and education."},"n":400,"summary":"As the income gap closes, strict economic hypergamy yields to educational and cultural homogamy. Incentives, not a frozen instinct.","mechanism":"Fisman et al. (2006): women preferred men from affluent neighborhoods and weighted intelligence heavily. Buss (1989): women stated higher value for earning capacity. The modern reading is a bargaining-and-insurance model: when a woman's own earnings and legal protections rise, the returns to marrying 'up' in money fall and the returns to matching on class and cognition rise.","caveats":"Speed-dating is not a marriage market. Neighborhood affluence is a noisy wealth signal. We do not have an RCT of income on women's preference weights.","confounders":["education","net-worth","social-capital"],"paperIds":["p-fisman-2006","p-buss-1989"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-education-homogamy","sourceId":"education","targetId":"educational-homogamy","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"People meet and match in education-sorted markets. This is one of the least mystical arrows in the atlas."},"n":null,"summary":"Education sorts the rooms where people meet. Homogamy is mostly a market-design fact.","mechanism":"Universities, firms, and cities stratify by credential. Once the meeting technology is stratified, matching on education is the default even if preferences were random. Fisman's intelligence/ambition weights sit on top of that meeting technology.","caveats":"Preferences and markets are entangled. We mark this causal_direct because the meeting-technology path is sufficient; we do not claim a deep preference shock from a diploma.","confounders":["disposable-income","social-capital"],"paperIds":["p-fisman-2006"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-vitd-employment-mr","sourceId":"vitamin-d","targetId":"employment-status","relation":"causal_genetic","direction":"forward","methodology":"mendelian_randomization","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"odds_ratio","value":1,"note":"MR-PheWAS and large MR catalogs do not support a causal 25(OH)D effect on general socioeconomic success."},"n":339256,"summary":"Genetic instruments for 25(OH)D do not buy you a job. The observational D–success link was a marker.","mechanism":"If lifelong higher 25(OH)D caused employment, SNPs that raise 25(OH)D should show up on socioeconomic and disease-wide scans. Meng et al. (2019) and Jiang et al. (2021) find no such general effect. Multiple sclerosis is the interesting exception in the medical catalog — not income.","caveats":"MR assumes no pleiotropy and a linear lifelong effect. It can miss threshold effects in the truly deficient. It is still the right tool for the 'D makes you successful' claim, and the claim fails.","confounders":["outdoor-time","disposable-income","education"],"paperIds":["p-meng-2019","p-jiang-2021"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-vitd-income-spurious","sourceId":"vitamin-d","targetId":"disposable-income","relation":"spurious","direction":"bidirectional","methodology":"observational","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Classic marker: outdoor leisure, latitude, adiposity, and wealth all move both variables."},"n":null,"summary":"People with money and outdoor lives have higher 25(OH)D. That is not D causing the money.","mechanism":"Autier et al. (2014): observational D–disease links do not survive RCTs. The same structure applies to D–income. Outdoor time, BMI, and health-seeking sit on the backdoor. VITAL then showed D3 does not even deliver the promised disease endpoints in a general population.","caveats":"Deficiency correction in institutionalized or deeply deficient groups is a different estimand. Do not use this edge to argue against treating rickets.","confounders":["outdoor-time","education","vitamin-supplementation"],"paperIds":["p-autier-2014","p-manson-2019"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-supplements-employment","sourceId":"vitamin-supplementation","targetId":"employment-status","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Healthy User Bias: the kind of person who buys vitamins is the kind of person who keeps a job."},"n":null,"summary":"The archetypal smoke. Control for education, parental SES, and baseline income and the supplement→career effect goes to zero.","mechanism":"Shrank, Patrick, and Brookhart (2011) describe the bias: adherers to preventive regimens have better outcomes even when the pill is a placebo. Multivitamin and omega-3 users are selected on conscientiousness, cash, and health anxiety. Those traits keep people employed.","caveats":"Correcting documented B12, iron, or D deficiency in deficient populations can restore function. That is a medical effect on a mediator (fatigue, cognition), not a career steroid.","confounders":["disposable-income","education","social-capital"],"paperIds":["p-shrank-2011"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-omega3-employment","sourceId":"omega3-supplementation","targetId":"employment-status","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Same healthy-user structure as multivitamins."},"n":null,"summary":"Fish-oil buyers are not a random sample of the labor force.","mechanism":"Omega-3 use clusters with education, income, and other preventive behaviors. Any raw association with unemployment is the bias, not the oil.","caveats":"This edge is about economic outcomes, not triglycerides. Do not export the verdict to cardiology.","confounders":["disposable-income","education"],"paperIds":["p-shrank-2011"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-income-buys-supplements","sourceId":"disposable-income","targetId":"vitamin-supplementation","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Pills are normal goods. This is the arrow people reverse."},"n":null,"summary":"Money buys bottles. Reverse causation is the whole trick of the wellness-to-wealth genre.","mechanism":"Supplements are inexpensive relative to rent and expensive relative to nothing. Demand rises with income and with health insurance culture. Once this arrow exists, the reverse observational arrow is unidentified.","caveats":"Not an RCT of cash transfers on pill purchases, but the demand curve is not in serious dispute.","confounders":["education"],"paperIds":["p-shrank-2011"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-outdoors-vitd","sourceId":"outdoor-time","targetId":"vitamin-d","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"UV-B cutaneous synthesis is the dominant natural source at most latitudes."},"n":null,"summary":"Sun makes 25(OH)D. This is the boring, real arrow that makes D a terrible instrument for success.","mechanism":"Cutaneous synthesis from UV-B is first-year physiology. Latitude, season, melanin, clothing, and time outside dominate pills for most ambulatory people. That is why D tracks lifestyle and class.","caveats":"Winter at high latitude plus indoor work can make this arrow too weak, which is when supplementation has a medical job.","confounders":["disposable-income"],"paperIds":["p-autier-2014"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-sleep-testosterone","sourceId":"sleep-hygiene","targetId":"testosterone","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"percent_change","value":-12,"note":"Leproult 2011: ~10–15% lower daytime T after a week of 5-hour nights (N=10 men)."},"n":10,"summary":"Cut sleep, cut T. Small trial, right design, right direction.","mechanism":"Overnight restriction in young men lowered daytime T without a matching drop in cortisol in that particular protocol. The sleep–T path is one of the few lifestyle→androgen arrows with experimental support.","caveats":"N=10, young men, one week. Do not scale to 'optimize T with a mattress'. Do treat chronic 5-hour sleep as an endocrine intervention you are already running.","confounders":[],"paperIds":["p-leproult-2011"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-sleep-cortisol","sourceId":"sleep-hygiene","targetId":"cortisol","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Sleep debt raises evening cortisol and wrecks glucose tolerance (Spiegel 1999)."},"n":11,"summary":"Sleep debt is an HPA intervention. It is also a HOMA-IR intervention.","mechanism":"Spiegel, Leproult, and Van Cauter restricted sleep in young men and watched evening cortisol stay high and glucose tolerance fall into a pre-diabetic band. This is how lifestyle talks to the dual-hormone system without a T gel.","caveats":"Classic small-N inpatient designs. Direction and mechanism have been replicated in spirit; exact effect sizes vary.","confounders":[],"paperIds":["p-spiegel-1999"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-sleep-insulin","sourceId":"sleep-hygiene","targetId":"insulin-resistance","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Same Spiegel 1999 protocol: sleep debt impaired glucose tolerance."},"n":11,"summary":"You can buy a continuous glucose monitor or you can sleep. One of these has a trial behind it.","mechanism":"Reduced insulin sensitivity after sleep restriction is one of the more reliable experimental findings in this atlas. It is a lifestyle→biology arrow that does not need a wellness brand.","caveats":"Recovery sleep reverses much of the acute effect. Chronic shift work is a different exposure.","confounders":["alcohol-intake","ultraprocessed-food"],"paperIds":["p-spiegel-1999"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-sleep-cognition","sourceId":"sleep-hygiene","targetId":"cognitive-performance","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"meta_analysis","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Attention and working memory degrade under short-term deprivation; the object is hours, not a stack."},"n":null,"summary":"Cut sleep, cut attention. The meta is large; the leap to 'sleep your way to a title' is not in it.","mechanism":"Lim and Dinges (2010) aggregated short-term deprivation studies and found reliable losses on vigilance and working memory. The identified object is time asleep. This atlas will not let that smuggle income, mate value, or leadership.","caveats":"A meta of acute protocols is not a career RCT. Recovery sleep reverses much of the deficit. Chronic restriction and shift work are related exposures, not this estimate.","confounders":["alcohol-intake","ferritin"],"paperIds":["p-lim-dinges-2010"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-prestige-leadership","sourceId":"prestige-strategy","targetId":"leadership-effectiveness","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"theory","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"In knowledge groups, prestige should beat dominance as a leadership technology."},"n":null,"summary":"If people follow you because you are worth copying, the group gets coordination without fear. That is a different hormone story.","mechanism":"Henrich and Gil-White (2001): prestige is an adaptation for cultural learning. Leaders who hold rank by skill should show different contest dynamics than leaders who hold rank by threat. Dual-hormone papers that ignore this split are measuring a mash-up.","caveats":"A theory paper, not a field experiment on CEOs. Included because the missing construct is the error in the folk model.","confounders":["formal-power","social-capital"],"paperIds":["p-henrich-2001"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-dominance-status","sourceId":"dominance-strategy","targetId":"status-seeking","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"theory","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Dominance is one of two technologies for the same latent (rank)."},"n":null,"summary":"Dominance is a means. Status is the end. Folklore treats them as synonyms.","mechanism":"The Henrich–Gil-White split again. Dual-hormone work is mostly about this means. Prestige is the other door into the same room.","caveats":"Conceptual edge. Do not treat it as an identified treatment effect.","confounders":[],"paperIds":["p-henrich-2001"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-income-risk","sourceId":"disposable-income","targetId":"risk-tolerance","relation":"spurious","direction":"bidirectional","methodology":"observational","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Richer people can afford more risk; risk-tolerant people may sort into higher-variance pay. Both arrows are live."},"n":212,"summary":"Holt–Laury measures the preference. Income changes the budget. Do not call either 'testosterone'.","mechanism":"Holt and Laury showed that the incentive scale itself moves estimated risk aversion. Background wealth should do the same. A T–risk paper that skips wealth is leaking.","caveats":"Lab lists are not portfolio choice. Gender composition of the room changes means.","confounders":["education","net-worth"],"paperIds":["p-holt-laury-2002"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-upf-insulin","sourceId":"ultraprocessed-food","targetId":"insulin-resistance","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Hall 2019: ad-lib UPF increased energy intake and weight vs unprocessed; metabolic cost follows the surplus."},"n":20,"summary":"UPF raises intake in a ward trial. That is a food-environment effect, not a moral one, and it is not a career steroid.","mechanism":"Hall et al. randomized adults to ultra-processed vs unprocessed menus matched on presented calories. People ate more on UPF and gained weight. Energy surplus and adiposity then move HOMA-IR. The identified object is intake, not a direct hormone spell.","caveats":"N=20, inpatient, two weeks. Do not export this to 'UPF causes unemployment'. Income still sits on who can avoid UPF.","confounders":["disposable-income"],"paperIds":["p-hall-2019"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-network-employment","sourceId":"social-capital","targetId":"employment-status","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Weak ties carry job information. This is sociology, not endocrinology."},"n":null,"summary":"Who you know is a hiring channel. It is also a backdoor in every supplement-and-success regression.","mechanism":"Granovetter (1973): novel job information arrives through weak ties. Later labor work keeps finding network effects on matching. That makes social capital a real arrow to employment and a confounder for purchasable health inputs.","caveats":"Not an RCT of 'make more acquaintances'. Homophily means networks and education travel together.","confounders":["education","disposable-income"],"paperIds":["p-granovetter-1973"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-alcohol-testosterone","sourceId":"alcohol-intake","targetId":"testosterone","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"review","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Heavy chronic use suppresses male T. Light social use is a different exposure."},"n":null,"summary":"Heavy drinking is an HPG intervention. A glass of wine is not a T protocol in reverse.","mechanism":"Emanuele and Emanuele review suppression of GnRH, LH, and testicular T production under chronic alcohol. The direction is down. This is one of the few lifestyle→androgen arrows that is not a supplement ad.","caveats":"Review, not a new RCT. Sex differences, binge vs daily, and liver disease all matter. Do not cite this against moderate intake without the dose.","confounders":["sleep-hygiene"],"paperIds":["p-emanuele-2001"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-alcohol-sleep","sourceId":"alcohol-intake","targetId":"sleep-hygiene","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"review","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Alcohol fragments the second half of the night. A sleep protocol that ignores this is theatre."},"n":null,"summary":"Alcohol is a sleep toxin with a sedative costume. It sits upstream of the sleep→T and sleep→cortisol arrows.","mechanism":"Ethanol reduces sleep latency then fragments REM and the back half of the night. That is how a drink becomes an endocrine intervention the next day, via the sleep edges already in this atlas.","caveats":"The sleep papers in this atlas are restriction protocols, not alcohol-plus-PSG trials. The alcohol→sleep arrow is physiological consensus; the exact effect size is not pinned here.","confounders":[],"paperIds":["p-emanuele-2001","p-spiegel-1999"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-ratio-is-not-a-knob","sourceId":"t-c-ratio","targetId":"status-seeking","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"low","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"A ratio can be moved by either hormone. It is a headline, not a mechanism."},"n":null,"summary":"T/C is a derived index. Stamp it smoke unless the paper pre-registered the ratio and showed the interaction.","mechanism":"Mehta and Josephs argued for an interaction, not a sacred ratio. Popular writing collapsed that into T/C optimization. Any association can be T, cortisol, or both. Prefer the two-hormone story on the dual-hormone edges.","caveats":"Some papers do pre-register the ratio. Those still need the same confounders as the interaction.","confounders":["testosterone","cortisol"],"paperIds":["p-mehta-josephs-2010","p-mehta-prasad-2015"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-wealth-hypergamy","sourceId":"net-worth","targetId":"hypergamy-preference","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Wealth is the stock version of the income story. Same backdoors, slower clock."},"n":400,"summary":"Assets change the feasible set in a mating market. That is not a new instinct.","mechanism":"Same identification problem as income→hypergamy. Neighborhood, education, and meeting technology sit on the backdoor. Fisman used neighborhood affluence, which is closer to wealth than to last month's paycheck.","caveats":"No RCT of endowments on preference weights.","confounders":["education","disposable-income"],"paperIds":["p-fisman-2006","p-buss-1989"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-power-youth-pref","sourceId":"formal-power","targetId":"youth-fertility-preference","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"low","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Power and income are bundled in the folk story. The papers measure markets, not org charts."},"n":null,"summary":"Command over people is not a separately identified cause of youth preference. It usually arrives with money.","mechanism":"Buss and Fisman do not randomize formal authority. Any raw power–preference link is entangled with income, age, and the rooms executives enter. Marked smoke until a design separates them.","caveats":"A clean identification would need a shock to rank that is not a shock to pay. We do not have one in the seed.","confounders":["disposable-income","education"],"paperIds":["p-buss-1989","p-fisman-2006"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-training-testosterone","sourceId":"resistance-training","targetId":"testosterone","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"low","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Acute T rises after sessions; chronic basal T in eugonadal adults is a small or null story."},"n":null,"summary":"Lifting is a body-composition and insulin intervention. It is a weak basal-T intervention.","mechanism":"Resistance sessions produce transient T and GH pulses. Resting total T in trained eugonadal men is not a reliable hypertrophy dividend. The interesting arrows from training in this atlas are social signal and insulin, not ng/dL.","caveats":"No single canonical RCT is attached; this edge exists so the node is not an orphan and so the folk claim has a place to die. Upgrade when we attach a specific training–T trial.","confounders":["sleep-hygiene","disposable-income"],"paperIds":["p-leproult-2011"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-dhea-status","sourceId":"dhea-s","targetId":"status-seeking","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"low","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Replacement moved some aging markers. Rank and ambition were not the endpoints."},"n":280,"summary":"DHEA-S on an optimization panel is not a status intervention.","mechanism":"Baulieu et al. randomized DHEA in older adults and watched hormones, skin, and libido. The folk leap is 'adrenal androgen → drive → rank'. That leap is not in the trial. Age, illness, and who can afford a panel sit on the backdoor of every observational DHEA–success plot.","caveats":"Correcting a documented deficiency is a medical act. Treating DHEA-S as a leadership lever is marketing. No edge from DHEA-S to income is licensed here.","confounders":["disposable-income","vitamin-supplementation"],"paperIds":["p-baulieu-2000"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-estradiol-cycle-pref","sourceId":"estradiol","targetId":"dominance-strategy","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"meta_analysis","confidence":"contested","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Two 2014 meta-analyses disagree on whether cycle shifts exist."},"n":null,"summary":"Cycle-phase 'preference for dominance' is a contested meta-finding, not a hormone dial.","mechanism":"Gildersleeve, Haselton, and Fales (2014) reported ovulatory shifts toward masculine/dominant cues. Wood and colleagues (2014) did not. Estradiol is the usual named mediator. A disagreement this public stays public: both papers sit on this edge.","caveats":"Even the positive meta is not a license to time a negotiation to a luteal calendar. Between-cycle noise, p-hacking risk, and the leap from facial masculinity to 'dominance strategy' as this atlas defines it are all large.","confounders":["sociosexuality","youth-fertility-preference"],"paperIds":["p-gildersleeve-2014","p-wood-2014"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-ferritin-cognition","sourceId":"ferritin","targetId":"cognitive-performance","relation":"causal_direct","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"moderate","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Correction of iron deficiency improved named cognitive tasks in young women."},"n":null,"summary":"Fix a ferritin deficit and attention can move. Raise a normal ferritin and you have a supplement ad.","mechanism":"Murray-Kolb and Beard (2007) treated iron-deficient young women and saw cognitive tasks normalize. Iron is a cofactor in dopaminergic and myelination pathways. The identified object is leaving deficiency, not climbing the reference range.","caveats":"Do not invert the arrow into 'high ferritin makes leaders'. Excess iron is a different clinical object. The trial population is young women with deficiency, not executives with a wellness panel.","confounders":["disposable-income","vitamin-supplementation"],"paperIds":["p-murray-kolb-2007"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-soi-not-hypergamy","sourceId":"sociosexuality","targetId":"hypergamy-preference","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"observational","confidence":"low","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"SOI-R measures orientation to uncommitted sex. Hypergamy measures resource weights. They are not substitutes."},"n":null,"summary":"Unrestricted sociosexuality is not a stealth measure of 'women want richer men'.","mechanism":"Penke and Asendorpf (2008) gave the field a stable SOI-R. Pop-evo threads collapse that instrument into resource hypergamy or into Buss's youth-preference item. Different constructs, different questions, often opposite short-term vs insurance logics.","caveats":"Correlations between SOI and mate-preference items exist in some samples and are sex-differentiated. They do not identify a causal path from sociosexuality to hypergamy. The stamp is smoke so the collapse has a place to die.","confounders":["education","disposable-income","youth-fertility-preference"],"paperIds":["p-penke-2008","p-buss-1989"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-pose-testosterone","sourceId":"power-pose","targetId":"testosterone","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Carney 2010 reported a T rise. Ranehill 2015 (N=200) found none."},"n":200,"summary":"Two minutes in a stance does not identify an androgen change. The larger RCT is a null. The TED talk is not a protocol.","mechanism":"Carney, Cuddy, and Yap (2010) assigned expansive versus contractive poses and reported higher T, lower cortisol, and more risk-taking. Ranehill et al. (2015) used the same logic in a larger sample and saw no hormone movement. Simmons and Simonsohn (2017) p-curved the supportive set and found it consistent with selective reporting. The folk mechanism — pose changes endocrine state, endocrine state changes rank — never clears the first step.","caveats":"Cuddy, Schultz, and Fosse (2018) p-curved a wider postural-feedback set and disagreed on subjective feelings. That debate is about self-report, not about T as a leadership stack. This edge is the hormone claim.","confounders":["status-seeking","cortisol"],"paperIds":["p-carney-2010","p-ranehill-2015","p-simmons-2017"],"featured":true},{"id":"e-pose-risk","sourceId":"power-pose","targetId":"risk-tolerance","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Ranehill 2015 found no risk-taking effect of the pose."},"n":200,"summary":"Expansive posture is not a Holt–Laury intervention. The 2010 risk result did not replicate.","mechanism":"The 2010 paper used a gambling task after the pose. Ranehill et al. measured risk-taking in a larger mixed-sex sample and found no difference. If a pose changed risk, it would still not identify status or income. It does not clear the first gate.","caveats":"Self-reported feelings of power are a different outcome. This edge is behavior and hormones, not mood.","confounders":["status-seeking"],"paperIds":["p-carney-2010","p-ranehill-2015"],"featured":false},{"id":"e-oxytocin-trust","sourceId":"oxytocin","targetId":"interpersonal-trust","relation":"spurious","direction":"forward","methodology":"rct","confidence":"high","effect":{"metric":"qualitative","value":null,"note":"Kosfeld 2005 reported higher transfers. Declerck 2020 registered replication: no main effect in MSC."},"n":677,"summary":"The trust-hormone slogan is a 2005 RCT that did not survive its own authors' registered replication.","mechanism":"Kosfeld, Heinrichs, Zak, Fischbacher, and Fehr (2005) reported that intranasal OT raised trust-game transfers. Nave, Camerer, and McCullough (2015) documented small N and mixed follow-ups. Declerck, Boone, Pauwels, Vogt, and Fehr (2020) pre-registered a high-powered test with the original minimal-social-contact condition and found no OT effect on trusting behavior there. Exploratory post-hocs are not the registered claim.","caveats":"A contested RCT stays on the atlas. The stamp is smoke for the folk spray-equals-trust arrow, not a claim that oxytocin is biologically inert. Plasma OT, parenting, and labor are different questions.","confounders":["social-capital"],"paperIds":["p-kosfeld-2005","p-nave-2015","p-declerck-2020"],"featured":true}],"papers":[{"id":"p-mehta-josephs-2010","title":"Testosterone and cortisol jointly regulate dominance: Evidence for a dual-hormone hypothesis","authors":["P. H. Mehta","R. A. Josephs"],"year":2010,"venue":"Hormones and Behavior","doi":"10.1016/j.yhbeh.2010.08.020","pmid":"20816841","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20816841/","methodology":"observational","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"In leadership and competition tasks, basal testosterone related to dominance only among people with low cortisol. High cortisol blocked or reversed the association. First empirical statement of the dual-hormone hypothesis."},{"id":"p-mehta-prasad-2015","title":"The dual-hormone hypothesis: a brief review and future research agenda","authors":["P. H. Mehta","S. Prasad"],"year":2015,"venue":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.12.001","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.12.001","methodology":"review","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Reviews evidence that testosterone predicts status-seeking when cortisol is low, and sets boundary conditions (context, sex, measurement) that later meta-analyses would stress."},{"id":"p-carre-olmstead-2015","title":"Social neuroendocrinology of human aggression: Examining the role of competition-induced testosterone dynamics","authors":["J. M. Carré","N. A. Olmstead"],"year":2015,"venue":"Neuroscience","doi":"10.1016/j.neuroscience.2014.05.033","pmid":"24881815","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24881815/","methodology":"review","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Reviews how acute T change after contests, not just basal T, relates to subsequent aggressive and competitive behavior. The dual-hormone picture is a moderator, not a slogan."},{"id":"p-eisenegger-2010","title":"Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour","authors":["C. Eisenegger","M. Naef","R. Snozzi","M. Heinrichs","E. Fehr"],"year":2010,"venue":"Nature","doi":"10.1038/nature08711","pmid":"19997098","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19997098/","methodology":"rct","n":121,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Single-dose T in women increased fair ultimatum offers. Belief that one received T — regardless of actual drug — increased unfairness. The folk hypothesis moved behavior more than the molecule in the belief arm."},{"id":"p-zak-2009","title":"Testosterone administration decreases generosity in the ultimatum game","authors":["P. J. Zak","R. Kurzban","S. Ahmadi"],"year":2009,"venue":"PLoS ONE","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0008330","pmid":"20016825","url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0008330","methodology":"rct","n":25,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"Androgel in men reduced generosity in the ultimatum game. Small crossover sample. Later labs did not treat this as settled; several failed to move rejection rates."},{"id":"p-cueva-2017","title":"Testosterone administration does not affect men's rejections of low ultimatum game offers or aggressive mood","authors":["C. Cueva","R. E. Roberts","T. J. Spencer","P. N. Tobler","A. Rustichini"],"year":2017,"venue":"Hormones and Behavior","doi":"10.1016/j.yhbeh.2016.09.012","pmid":"27702573","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27702573/","methodology":"rct","n":40,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"48-hour T vs placebo in men: no effect on rejection of low ultimatum offers. A necessary counterweight to the 2009 generosity paper."},{"id":"p-fisman-2006","title":"Gender differences in mate selection: Evidence from a speed dating experiment","authors":["R. Fisman","S. S. Iyengar","E. Kamenica","I. Simonson"],"year":2006,"venue":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","doi":"10.1162/qjec.2006.121.2.673","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2006.121.2.673","methodology":"observational","n":400,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Columbia speed-dating: men weighted attractiveness more; women weighted intelligence and race more; women preferred men from affluent neighborhoods; men did not value women's intelligence or ambition past their own. Revealed preference, not a survey slogan."},{"id":"p-buss-1989","title":"Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures","authors":["D. M. Buss"],"year":1989,"venue":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X00023992","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00023992","methodology":"observational","n":10047,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Stated preferences across 37 cultures: women placed more value on earning capacity; men placed more value on youth and physical attractiveness. Foundational, survey-based, and the starting point later field experiments had to discipline."},{"id":"p-mazur-booth-1998","title":"Testosterone and dominance in men","authors":["A. Mazur","A. Booth"],"year":1998,"venue":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X98001228","pmid":"10097017","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10097017/","methodology":"review","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"States the biosocial model: T encourages dominance attempts; winning raises T and losing lowers it. Reciprocal, not one-way. The paper to cite for the winner–loser loop."},{"id":"p-booth-1989","title":"Testosterone, and winning and losing in human competition","authors":["A. Booth","G. Shelley","A. Mazur","G. Tharp","R. Kittok"],"year":1989,"venue":"Hormones and Behavior","doi":"10.1016/0018-506X(89)90042-1","pmid":"2638686","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2638686/","methodology":"longitudinal","n":6,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"University tennis players across a season: T rose before matches and rose after wins relative to losses, especially when mood about the victory was high. Tiny N; historically important."},{"id":"p-geniole-2020","title":"Evidence from meta-analyses of the facial width-to-height ratio versus the dual-hormone hypothesis as predictors of status-seeking","authors":["S. N. Geniole","T. L. F. McCormick"],"year":2020,"venue":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","doi":"10.1007/s40750-019-00120-5","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-019-00120-5","methodology":"meta_analysis","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Later quantitative reviews of the dual-hormone literature find a small, heterogeneous, publication-bias-sensitive effect. The interaction is not a law of nature. It is a live, contested hypothesis."},{"id":"p-holt-laury-2002","title":"Risk aversion and incentive effects","authors":["C. A. Holt","S. K. Laury"],"year":2002,"venue":"American Economic Review","doi":"10.1257/000282802762024700","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1257/000282802762024700","methodology":"rct","n":212,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"The multiple-price-list that became the field's default risk-preference measure. Incentive level changes estimated risk aversion. This is how 'risk' should be operationalized in this atlas."},{"id":"p-henrich-2001","title":"The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission","authors":["J. Henrich","F. J. Gil-White"],"year":2001,"venue":"Evolution and Human Behavior","doi":"10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00071-4","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00071-4","methodology":"theory","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Splits status into dominance (force) and prestige (freely conferred deference to those worth copying). Without this split, every T paper gets over-interpreted as an aggression paper."},{"id":"p-penke-2008","title":"Beyond global sociosexual orientations: A more differentiated look at sociosexuality and its effects on courtship and romantic relationships","authors":["L. Penke","J. B. Asendorpf"],"year":2008,"venue":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology","doi":"10.1037/0022-3514.95.5.1113","pmid":"18954197","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18954197/","methodology":"observational","n":2724,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Validates SOI-R: behavior, attitude, and desire are separable. The instrument this atlas uses whenever 'sociosexuality' is a node."},{"id":"p-meng-2019","title":"Phenome-wide Mendelian-randomization study of genetically determined vitamin D on multiple health outcomes using the UK Biobank study","authors":["X. Meng","X. Li","M. N. Timofeeva"],"year":2019,"venue":"International Journal of Epidemiology","doi":"10.1093/ije/dyz182","pmid":"31518429","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31518429/","methodology":"mendelian_randomization","n":339256,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"MR-PheWAS in 339,256 White British UK Biobank participants. Genetically predicted 25(OH)D was not associated with the pre-specified disease outcomes. A wide net, and it came up empty."},{"id":"p-jiang-2021","title":"The causal role of circulating vitamin D concentrations in human complex traits and diseases: a large-scale Mendelian randomization study","authors":["X. Jiang","P. F. O'Reilly","H. Aschard"],"year":2021,"venue":"Scientific Reports","doi":"10.1038/s41598-020-80655-w","pmid":"33420254","url":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-80655-w","methodology":"mendelian_randomization","n":443734,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"138 25(OH)D instruments against 190 GWAS. Multiple sclerosis is the standout exception; anthropometrics and most other complex traits are not. Socioeconomic success is not in the 'caused by D' column."},{"id":"p-manson-2019","title":"Vitamin D supplements and prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease","authors":["J. E. Manson","N. R. Cook","I. M. Lee"],"year":2019,"venue":"New England Journal of Medicine","doi":"10.1056/NEJMoa1809944","pmid":"30415629","url":"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1809944","methodology":"rct","n":25871,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"VITAL: 25,871 adults, 2000 IU/day vitamin D3. No reduction in invasive cancer or major cardiovascular events in the primary analysis. The trial that should have ended 'D pills prevent decline' as a general claim."},{"id":"p-autier-2014","title":"Vitamin D status and ill health: a systematic review","authors":["P. Autier","M. Boniol","C. Pizot","P. Mullie"],"year":2014,"venue":"The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology","doi":"10.1016/S2213-8587(13)70165-7","pmid":"24622671","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24622671/","methodology":"meta_analysis","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Observational associations between low 25(OH)D and disease are abundant; supplementation RCTs do not reproduce them. The authors' reading: low D is a marker of ill health, not the cause of it."},{"id":"p-shrank-2011","title":"Healthy user and related biases in observational studies of preventive interventions: a primer for physicians","authors":["W. H. Shrank","A. R. Patrick","M. A. Brookhart"],"year":2011,"venue":"Journal of General Internal Medicine","doi":"10.1007/s11606-010-1609-1","pmid":"21203857","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21203857/","methodology":"review","n":null,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"The primer on Healthy User Bias: people who take preventive pills are different in a hundred ways that look like treatment effects. The right citation for 'supplement users have better jobs'."},{"id":"p-leproult-2011","title":"Effect of 1 week of sleep restriction on testosterone levels in young healthy men","authors":["R. Leproult","E. Van Cauter"],"year":2011,"venue":"JAMA","doi":"10.1001/jama.2011.710","pmid":"21632481","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21632481/","methodology":"rct","n":10,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"One week of 5-hour nights cut daytime T by 10–15% in young men. Small N, clean design, the right direction of effect. Sleep is not a wellness garnish."},{"id":"p-spiegel-1999","title":"Impact of sleep debt on metabolic and endocrine function","authors":["K. Spiegel","R. Leproult","E. Van Cauter"],"year":1999,"venue":"The Lancet","doi":"10.1016/S0140-6736(99)01376-8","pmid":"10560671","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10560671/","methodology":"rct","n":11,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Sleep debt in young men raised evening cortisol and reduced glucose tolerance to a pre-diabetic range. Foundational endocrine-sleep trial."},{"id":"p-hall-2019","title":"Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: an inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake","authors":["K. D. Hall","A. Ayuketah","R. Brychta"],"year":2019,"venue":"Cell Metabolism","doi":"10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008","pmid":"31105044","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31105044/","methodology":"rct","n":20,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"Adults ate more and gained weight on an ultra-processed diet matched for presented calories and macros versus an unprocessed diet. A rare experimental handle on UPF, not a SES fairy tale."},{"id":"p-granovetter-1973","title":"The strength of weak ties","authors":["M. S. Granovetter"],"year":1973,"venue":"American Journal of Sociology","doi":"10.1086/225469","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1086/225469","methodology":"observational","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Job information travels over weak ties. Network position is a labor-market technology. The paper this atlas uses whenever 'social capital gets you hired' is the claim."},{"id":"p-emanuele-2001","title":"Alcohol and the male reproductive system","authors":["M. A. Emanuele","N. Emanuele"],"year":2001,"venue":"Alcohol Research & Health","doi":null,"pmid":"11810959","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11810959/","methodology":"review","n":null,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"Chronic heavy alcohol use suppresses the HPG axis in men: lower T, testicular atrophy, disrupted GnRH. Dose and chronicity matter. A drink at dinner is not this paper."},{"id":"p-baulieu-2000","title":"Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), DHEA sulfate, and aging: contribution of the DHEAge Study to a sociobiomedical issue","authors":["E. E. Baulieu","G. Thomas","S. Legrain","N. Lahlou","M. Roger","B. Debuire"],"year":2000,"venue":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","doi":"10.1073/pnas.97.8.4279","pmid":"10760294","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10760294/","methodology":"rct","n":280,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"A year of DHEA replacement in older adults moved some hormone markers and skin/libido items. It did not produce a status, cognition, or income story. The optimization-panel favorite remains a biomarker looking for a job."},{"id":"p-gildersleeve-2014","title":"Do women's mate preferences change across the ovulatory cycle? A meta-analytic review","authors":["K. Gildersleeve","M. G. Haselton","M. R. Fales"],"year":2014,"venue":"Psychological Bulletin","doi":"10.1037/a0035438","pmid":"24564172","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24564172/","methodology":"meta_analysis","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"A meta-analysis reported cycle shifts toward masculine/dominant cues at high fertility. The finding is the citation for the pop-evo cycle story — and the start of the replication fight, not the end of it."},{"id":"p-wood-2014","title":"Meta-analysis of menstrual cycle effects on women's mate preferences","authors":["W. Wood","L. Kressel","P. D. Joshi","B. Louie"],"year":2014,"venue":"Emotion Review","doi":"10.1177/1754073914523073","pmid":null,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073914523073","methodology":"meta_analysis","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"A competing meta-analysis found little support for cycle-shifted mate preferences once methods were scrutinized. Keep it on the same edge as Gildersleeve. The honest stamp is contested, not 'debunked' and not 'settled biology'."},{"id":"p-murray-kolb-2007","title":"Iron treatment normalizes cognitive functioning in young women","authors":["L. E. Murray-Kolb","J. L. Beard"],"year":2007,"venue":"American Journal of Clinical Nutrition","doi":"10.1093/ajcn/85.3.778","pmid":"17344500","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17344500/","methodology":"rct","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Treating iron deficiency in young women improved attention and memory on named tasks. This is a deficit-correction trial. It is not evidence that high ferritin is an executive stack."},{"id":"p-lim-dinges-2010","title":"A meta-analysis of the impact of short-term sleep deprivation on cognitive variables","authors":["J. Lim","D. F. Dinges"],"year":2010,"venue":"Psychological Bulletin","doi":"10.1037/a0018883","pmid":"20804237","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20804237/","methodology":"meta_analysis","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Short-term sleep deprivation reliably degrades attention and working memory across named tasks. Hours of sleep are a cognitive intervention. A nootropic stack is not a substitute for this paper."},{"id":"p-carney-2010","title":"Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance","authors":["D. R. Carney","A. J. C. Cuddy","A. J. Yap"],"year":2010,"venue":"Psychological Science","doi":"10.1177/0956797610383437","pmid":"20855902","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20855902/","methodology":"rct","n":42,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Two minutes of expansive versus contractive posture were reported to raise testosterone, lower cortisol, and increase risk-taking. N=42. This is the TED-talk paper. It is the start of the file, not the identification."},{"id":"p-ranehill-2015","title":"Assessing the Robustness of Power Posing: No Effect on Hormones and Risk Tolerance in a Large Sample of Men and Women","authors":["E. Ranehill","A. Dreber","M. Johannesson","S. Leiberg","S. Sul","R. A. Weber"],"year":2015,"venue":"Psychological Science","doi":"10.1177/0956797614553946","pmid":"25810452","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25810452/","methodology":"rct","n":200,"openAccess":true,"abstract":"A larger sample found no effect of expansive posture on testosterone, cortisol, or risk-taking. The hormone and risk claims from 2010 do not survive this test."},{"id":"p-simmons-2017","title":"Power Posing: P-Curving the Evidence","authors":["J. P. Simmons","U. Simonsohn"],"year":2017,"venue":"Psychological Science","doi":"10.1177/0956797616658563","pmid":"28485698","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28485698/","methodology":"meta_analysis","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"A p-curve of the supportive postural-feedback set is indistinguishable from a null plus selective reporting. Weak evidence is not a reason to hunt for moderators or to prescribe a pose."},{"id":"p-kosfeld-2005","title":"Oxytocin increases trust in humans","authors":["M. Kosfeld","M. Heinrichs","P. J. Zak","U. Fischbacher","E. Fehr"],"year":2005,"venue":"Nature","doi":"10.1038/nature03701","pmid":"15931222","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15931222/","methodology":"rct","n":58,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"Intranasal oxytocin raised transfers in the trust game relative to placebo. The paper created the trust-hormone slogan. It is an RCT. It is not the last word."},{"id":"p-nave-2015","title":"Does Oxytocin Increase Trust in Humans? A Critical Review of Research","authors":["G. Nave","C. Camerer","M. McCullough"],"year":2015,"venue":"Perspectives on Psychological Science","doi":"10.1177/1745691615600138","pmid":"26581735","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26581735/","methodology":"review","n":null,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"A critical review of the oxytocin–trust literature: small samples, publication bias, and mixed conceptual replications. Camerer is on this paper. He is not on the ultimatum T RCT."},{"id":"p-declerck-2020","title":"A registered replication study on oxytocin and trust","authors":["C. H. Declerck","C. Boone","L. Pauwels","B. Vogt","E. Fehr"],"year":2020,"venue":"Nature Human Behaviour","doi":"10.1038/s41562-020-0878-x","pmid":"32514040","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32514040/","methodology":"rct","n":677,"openAccess":false,"abstract":"A registered, high-powered double-blind replication, including the original minimal-social-contact condition, found no effect of oxytocin on trusting behavior there. Fehr is a coauthor of both the 2005 paper and this one."}],"cases":[{"id":"income-mate-preferences","slug":"income-mate-preferences","title":"Income, power, and who we choose","dek":"Hypergamy is real as a historical average and incomplete as a law. Close the income gap and the market switches toward homogamy.","folkClaim":"High-earning men are biologically programmed to chase youth; high-earning women still chase richer men. The preference is an instinct, not a budget.","actualFinding":"Buss (1989) does show sex-typical stated weights: men on youth/attractiveness, women on earning capacity. Fisman, Iyengar, Kamenica, and Simonson (2006) show those weights in a real choice environment — and also show intelligence, race, neighborhood affluence, and own-ambition ceilings. The modern quantitative reading is an incentives story: as women's own income and education rise, strict economic hypergamy loosens and educational/cultural homogamy takes the slack.","takeaway":"Treat mate preference as a function of market position and insurance, then look for residual sex differences. Do not start from the residual and work backwards to a myth.","layerIds":["ses","psychology"],"edgeIds":["e-income-youth-pref","e-income-hypergamy","e-education-homogamy"],"paperIds":["p-fisman-2006","p-buss-1989"],"sections":[{"heading":"What the surveys actually asked","body":"Buss's 37-culture study is a stated-preference inventory, not a marriage registry. It is large, famous, and the correct citation for 'on average, men say they want younger partners and women say they want providers'. It is the wrong citation for 'therefore a raise will change your type'. Stated preference plus social-desirability is a soft instrument."},{"heading":"What the Columbia rooms revealed","body":"Fisman et al. randomly seated Columbia speed-daters and recorded yes/no decisions, not essays. Men put more weight on physical attractiveness. Women put more weight on intelligence and race, preferred men from affluent neighborhoods, and men's value for a woman's intelligence/ambition fell once it exceeded their own. That is a much sharper object than a magazine listicle."},{"heading":"The identification problem","body":"Nobody randomized wealth. Neighborhood affluence, education, and beauty are bundled. The backdoor from income to preference runs through the rooms you are allowed to enter. Close those rooms — or equalize female earnings — and the revealed weights move. That is why this atlas marks the income→preference edges spurious-until-identified, not 'debunked' and not 'proven instinct'."}]},{"id":"dual-hormone","slug":"dual-hormone","title":"The dual-hormone hypothesis","dek":"High testosterone is not a leadership stack. It is a term in an interaction, and the other term is cortisol.","folkClaim":"High testosterone makes leaders. Optimize T and you optimize status.","actualFinding":"Mehta and Josephs (2010) found T related to dominant, leader-like behavior only when cortisol was low. When cortisol was high, the relationship vanished or reversed. Mehta and Prasad (2015) and Carré and Olmstead (2015) refined the claim around contest-induced T change. Later quantitative reviews find a small, messy effect. The folk line is a dropped interaction term.","takeaway":"If you insist on an endocrine story of rank, tell the two-hormone story, cite the small effect, and remember that lab leadership is not a P&L.","layerIds":["biology","psychology"],"edgeIds":["e-t-status-dual","e-cortisol-moderates-t","e-win-testosterone","e-t-ultimatum-rct"],"paperIds":["p-mehta-josephs-2010","p-mehta-prasad-2015","p-carre-olmstead-2015","p-eisenegger-2010","p-geniole-2020"],"sections":[{"heading":"The paper that should have killed the slogan","body":"Mehta and Josephs ran leadership and competition protocols and plotted T against behavior at high vs low cortisol. The simple slope that Instagram wanted existed on one side of the split only. On the other side it died. That is an interaction, and interactions are easy to hide in a thread."},{"heading":"What exogenous T actually did to bargaining","body":"The brief mentioned 'Camerer et al.' and the ultimatum game. The Nature experiment is Eisenegger et al. (2010): T made women more fair as proposers; the belief that one received T made them less fair. Zak (2009) found less male generosity. Cueva et al. (2017) found a null on male rejections. This atlas keeps all three on the same edge. A contested RCT is still more informative than a confident blog."},{"heading":"The loop people skip","body":"Mazur and Booth's winner–loser model is a feedback loop: the contest moves T, T colors the next contest. Treating T as a fixed 'level you optimize' misses the dynamics. Sleep restriction (Leproult 2011; Spiegel 1999) is a cleaner experimental handle on the same system than a supplement stack."}]},{"id":"supplements-healthy-user","slug":"supplements-healthy-user","title":"Pills, paychecks, and the healthy user","dek":"People who buy omega-3 and vitamin D look employable. The bottles are not why.","folkClaim":"Supplement users have lower unemployment and better jobs. Therefore the pills cause the career.","actualFinding":"This is the textbook Healthy User Effect (Shrank, Patrick, Brookhart 2011). Mendelian randomization of 25(OH)D (Meng 2019; Jiang 2021) does not produce socioeconomic or general-disease effects. VITAL (Manson 2019) does not produce the promised cancer or cardiovascular benefit in a general population. Autier et al. (2014) already warned that observational D is a marker of ill health. Condition on income, education, and outdoor time and the career arrow disappears. What remains are clinical-deficiency corrections.","takeaway":"If a health input can be bought, income is on the backdoor. Genetic instruments and RCTs are how this atlas takes the backdoor away.","layerIds":["lifestyle","ses","biology"],"edgeIds":["e-supplements-employment","e-omega3-employment","e-vitd-employment-mr","e-vitd-income-spurious","e-income-buys-supplements","e-outdoors-vitd"],"paperIds":["p-shrank-2011","p-meng-2019","p-jiang-2021","p-manson-2019","p-autier-2014"],"sections":[{"heading":"Name the bias","body":"Healthy users floss, show up to work, fill preventive prescriptions, and buy fish oil. Their kids' schools and their parents' degrees came first. An observational regression of job quality on pill count without those covariates is a press release, not an estimate."},{"heading":"What genetics and trials take away","body":"MR asks: do people whose genomes push 25(OH)D higher have different lives? In UK Biobank-scale data, not in the ways wellness marketing needs. VITAL asks a related question with a pill and a randomization. The primary endpoints did not move. Together they identify the observational D–success link as smoke."},{"heading":"What remains after the demolition","body":"Treat deficiency. B12 in the deficient, iron in the anemic, D in the dark and institutionalized. Those are medical arrows onto fatigue and bone, maybe mood. They are not arrows onto title, comp, or mate value. This atlas will keep those clinical edges if and when a paper identifies them — and will refuse to let them smuggle a career claim."}]},{"id":"cycle-shifts","slug":"cycle-shifts","title":"The ovulatory-shift fight","dek":"Two meta-analyses in the same year. The honest atlas keeps both and refuses the calendar hack.","folkClaim":"Women want dominant men at peak fertility. Time the ask to the luteal phase. Estradiol is the dial.","actualFinding":"Gildersleeve, Haselton, and Fales (2014) reported cycle shifts toward masculine and dominant cues. Wood, Kressel, Joshi, and Louie (2014) reported that those shifts mostly vanish under a different meta-analytic lens. Estradiol is the named mediator in the positive story. Neither paper licenses a negotiation calendar, and neither identifies dominance-strategy as this atlas uses the term.","takeaway":"When two competent metas collide, the stamp is contested. Cite both. Do not sell a cycle hack.","layerIds":["biology","psychology"],"edgeIds":["e-estradiol-cycle-pref"],"paperIds":["p-gildersleeve-2014","p-wood-2014"],"sections":[{"heading":"What the positive meta claimed","body":"Gildersleeve et al. aggregated cycle-shift studies and reported that preferences for purported good-gene cues rose near ovulation. That is the paper Instagram needed. It is also a paper about facial masculinity and scent, not about who becomes CFO."},{"heading":"What the other meta took away","body":"Wood et al. argued that researcher degrees of freedom and fertile-window coding were doing more work than hormones. A reader who only cites Gildersleeve is doing advocacy. A reader who only cites Wood is doing the mirror image."},{"heading":"What this atlas does with a split literature","body":"The edge stays on the atlas, stamped spurious-until-settled (contested confidence), with both DOIs. Inquire will not tell you to change a pitch meeting. If a preregistered, large, hormonal-assay study later identifies a narrow effect, we upgrade the stamp. We do not upgrade the folklore."}]},{"id":"pose-and-spray","slug":"pose-and-spray","title":"Poses, sprays, and the replication wave","dek":"Two TED-ready hormones. Two failed replications. The atlas keeps the original RCTs and the papers that took them down.","folkClaim":"Stand like a CEO and your hormones will make you one. Spray oxytocin and strangers will trust you.","actualFinding":"Carney, Cuddy, and Yap (2010) reported that two minutes of expansive posture raised testosterone, cut cortisol, and increased risk-taking (N=42). Ranehill et al. (2015) ran 200 people and found no hormone or risk effect. Simmons and Simonsohn (2017) p-curved the supportive set and found it consistent with selective reporting. Kosfeld et al. (2005) reported that intranasal oxytocin raised trust-game transfers. Nave, Camerer, and McCullough (2015) reviewed the follow-ups as inconclusive. Declerck et al. (2020), including Fehr, registered a high-powered replication with the original social-contact condition and found no OT effect on trusting behavior there.","takeaway":"A viral RCT that dies in a larger registered study stays on the atlas as smoke, with both papers linked. Replication is a stamp, not a vibe.","layerIds":["biology","psychology","lifestyle"],"edgeIds":["e-pose-testosterone","e-pose-risk","e-oxytocin-trust"],"paperIds":["p-carney-2010","p-ranehill-2015","p-simmons-2017","p-kosfeld-2005","p-nave-2015","p-declerck-2020"],"sections":[{"heading":"What the 2010 pose paper claimed","body":"Carney, Cuddy, and Yap assigned 42 people to expansive or contractive poses for two minutes and reported a T rise, a cortisol drop, and more risk-taking. That is a real RCT. It is also N=42 on three correlated outcomes. The TED talk dropped the sample size and kept the endocrine story. The folk mechanism needs the hormone step. Without it, 'feeling powerful' is a mood item."},{"heading":"What the larger test and the p-curve took away","body":"Ranehill, Dreber, Johannesson, Leiberg, Sul, and Weber (2015) used the same pose logic in 200 men and women and found no effect on T, cortisol, or risk. Simmons and Simonsohn (2017) p-curved the supportive postural-feedback set Carney et al. had cited and found a distribution you would expect if the average effect were zero and significant results were selected. A later reply argued for self-report effects in a wider set. That is a different claim than 'the pose moves androgens.' This atlas stamps the hormone and risk arrows smoke."},{"heading":"The spray, and Camerer on the right paper","body":"Kosfeld, Heinrichs, Zak, Fischbacher, and Fehr (2005) is the Nature RCT behind 'oxytocin is the trust hormone.' Nave, Camerer, and McCullough (2015) is the review that should have ended the slogan — and the paper that actually has Camerer on it, unlike the ultimatum T trial the brief misattributed. Declerck, Boone, Pauwels, Vogt, and Fehr (2020) then registered a 677-person double-blind replication, including the original minimal-social-contact condition, and found no OT effect on trusting behavior there. Fehr signed both the discovery and the registered null. We keep both. We do not sell a spray."}]},{"id":"sleep-is-the-handle","slug":"sleep-is-the-handle","title":"Sleep is the handle","dek":"Restriction trials move T, cortisol, glucose, and attention. A mattress is not a promotion — and a spray is not a substitute.","folkClaim":"Optimize testosterone and focus with a stack. Sleep is hygiene. The causal inputs are pills, poses, and grit.","actualFinding":"Leproult and Van Cauter (2011) cut young men's nights to five hours for a week and lowered daytime T about 10–15% (N=10). Spiegel, Leproult, and Van Cauter (1999) raised evening cortisol and pushed glucose tolerance into a pre-diabetic band. Lim and Dinges (2010) meta-analyzed short-term deprivation and found reliable losses on vigilance and working memory. Alcohol sits on the backdoor: it fragments the night that those trials restricted. The identified object is hours, not a title.","takeaway":"If you want a lifestyle arrow onto the dual-hormone system, cite hours of sleep. Inquire will still name alcohol as an open backdoor. Do not smuggle a career claim.","layerIds":["lifestyle","biology","psychology"],"edgeIds":["e-sleep-testosterone","e-sleep-cortisol","e-sleep-insulin","e-sleep-cognition","e-alcohol-sleep"],"paperIds":["p-leproult-2011","p-spiegel-1999","p-lim-dinges-2010","p-emanuele-2001"],"sections":[{"heading":"The trial that actually moved T","body":"Leproult 2011 is small and male and one week long. It is also a restriction protocol with a named hormone outcome. That is more identification than a pose, a spray, or an optimization panel. This atlas stamps it MECHANISM and writes the N on the edge. A mattress brand that cites this paper for 'executive androgen' is smuggling."},{"heading":"Cortisol, glucose, and attention are the same handle","body":"Spiegel 1999 is the HPA and metabolic twin: sleep debt leaves evening cortisol high and wrecks glucose tolerance. Lim and Dinges 2010 take the same exposure onto vigilance and working memory. If you only cite the T paper you are doing advocacy for a supplement stack. The honest object is time asleep, with three named outcomes."},{"heading":"The backdoor Inquire will not let you skip","body":"Alcohol fragments the second half of the night. A sleep protocol that ignores drinks is theatre. Inquire from sleep to T stays blocked_by_backdoor for that reason — not because the restriction trial is fake. A real handle can still have an open door. That is the point of the engine."}]}]}