Testosterone → Status seeking
Basal T is not a leadership switch. The dual-hormone claim is an interaction, and the interaction is small and contested.
Observational · Contested
Supported by an experiment or a tightly identified design. Still read the caveats.
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.
Effect
qualitative. Interaction: T predicts status-seeking mainly when cortisol is low.
Nodes
Named confounders
Cite this page
What Causes What. “Testosterone → Status seeking.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-t-status-dual (atlas updated 2026-08-31).
Papers
- Testosterone and cortisol jointly regulate dominance: Evidence for a dual-hormone hypothesis
P. H. Mehta, R. A. Josephs · 2010 · Hormones and Behavior
- The dual-hormone hypothesis: a brief review and future research agenda
P. H. Mehta, S. Prasad · 2015 · Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
- Evidence from meta-analyses of the facial width-to-height ratio versus the dual-hormone hypothesis as predictors of status-seeking
S. N. Geniole, T. L. F. McCormick · 2020 · Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology