The Doctor Weighs In

By Dov Michaeli MD, PhD

So you thought you’ve heard enough about the deep fissures in our body politic; a map that is colored red for Republican states (last I checked this color connoted Socialism, God forbid) and blue for Democratic states (blue-blood Democrats? The ultimate oxymoron; who is the moron who devised this system, anyway?). Or noisy demonstrations against the “public option” (and don’t touch ‘my Medicare’ you dirty Socialists!) or angry commentators on MSNBC (does Keith Olbermann ever smile? Lighten up dude, you won!) who’d rather see no health care reform at all than cede one iota to the malevolent opposition. Well, scientists finally found what is at the root of this divide: TESTOSTERONE!

Background evidence

 As if we didn’t suspect that something primeval must be underlying the differences between D’s and R’s. Consider:

• More D’s are vegetarians, and conversely more veggies are D’s.
• Psychological studies have shown that D’s tend to show more empathy than R’s.
• Likewise for tendency to altruism.
• Maybe somewhat unrelated, but more college graduates are D’s, more professors are D’s, more journalists are D’s, and according to Pat Buchanan/Spiro Agnew D’s are “nabobs of negativism”, or simply put –a bunch of egghead wimps.

It wouldn’t surprise me if some anthropologist came upon skeletal remains which clearly demonstrated that ancient R’s were hunters and ancient D’s were gatherers. That’s no joke; just consider: anthropologists do tell us that men were the hunters and women were the gatherers. And guess what: more men are R’s and more women are D’s; ergo it begs the conclusion that R is likely to have been a hunter, D - a gatherer. Do you suspect that testosterone may have something to do with it?

Yes, it does!

An article titled “Dominance, Politics, and Physiology: Voters’ Testosterone Changes on the Night of the 2008 United States Presidential Election.” By Steven J. Stanton, Jacinta C. Beehner, Ekjyot K. Saini, Cynthia M. Kuhn, Kevin S. LaBar.was published in PLoS ONE, October 21, 2009. Mind you, PLoS ONE (Public Library of Science) is a first tier scientific journal: it is peer reviewed, highly regarded for the quality of its papers, and as the name implies – does not accept advertisement of any sort so as to safeguard its independence of any commercial or political bias. Now that I biased you sufficiently to accept the findings, read on.

The study investigated voters' testosterone responses to the outcome of the 2008 United States Presidential election. They note that “Dominance contests are a critical component of determining the leadership of social hierarchies across a wide range of species. In modern human societies, this dominance contest can take the form of a democratic election. Across mammalian species, testosterone is critically linked to dominance competition for hierarchical advancement in males. When males win a dominance contest, their testosterone levels rise or remain stable to resist a circadian decline, and when they lose, their testosterone levels fall”. A word of interpretation: “remain stable to resist a circadian decline” means an actual rise, in the same way that stable temperature in the morning, when it is supposed to drop from the evening levels, is in effect a rise.

Testosterone Levels: 183 participants provided multiple saliva samples before and after the winner was announced on Election Night.

Right wing Authoritarianism: The researchers also measured individuals' endorsement of authoritarian ideals using the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) scale. The RWA scale includes items assaying individuals' values on issues such as religion, homosexuality, abortion, marriage, feminism, moral tradition, and strong leadership.

 The results show that male Barack Obama voters (winners) had stable post-outcome testosterone levels, whereas testosterone levels dropped in male John McCain and Robert Barr voters (losers). There were no significant effects in female voters.

The results also showed a high correlation between the RWA (right  wing authoritarianism) scale and declared political affiliation.

 In a typically professional understatement, the authors conclude: “The findings indicate that male voters exhibit biological responses to the realignment of a country's dominance hierarchy as if they participated in an interpersonal dominance contest”.

What does it all mean?

It may have many political/societal implications, but some of them are almost self evident.

• The losing party is in a funk, especially its male members, no pun intended.
• As many psychological studies have shown, the normative response to loss is final acceptance. But a non-normative (i.e. pathological) response could be denial, or worse – rage. Any evidence for that on recent TV images? Did the Secret Service take notice?
• Societal trends in the U.S. tend toward the less authoritarian, more inclusive attitudes. Did the GOP leaders take notice?

And finally: isn’t science fun when you are a D, and sort of a drag when you are an R? Just witness the difference in attitude toward science between W’s White House and O's.