Barack Obama Boosts Testosterone

But only if you voted for him, and only if you're a man. That's according to a PLoS One paper called Dominance, Politics, and Physiology.

It's already known that in males, winning competitions - achieving "dominance" - causes a rapid rise in testosterone release, whilst losing does the opposite. That's true in humans, as well as in other mammals. The authors wondered whether the same thing happens when men "win" vicariously - i.e. when someone we identify with triumphs.

What better way of testing this than the U.S. Presidential Election? The authors took 163 American voters, and got them to provide saliva samples before, during and after the results came in on the night of the 4th November. Here's what happened -

In Obama supporters (the blue line, natch), salivary testosterone levels stayed flat throughout the crucial hours. But supporters of John McCain or Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, suffered a testosterone crash after Obama's victory became apparent. That was only true in men, though; in women, there was no change.

Heh. Of course, we hardly needed biology to tell us that people often identify strongly with their preferred political parties, and the fact that social events cause hormonal changes shouldn't surprise anyone - the brain controls the secretion of most hormones.

The gender difference is interesting, though. Does this mean that men identify closer with politicians? Or maybe only with male ones - what would have happened if Hilary had won... or Palin? It could be that the testosterone surge accompanying success is strictly a man thing, although it's been shown to occur in women in some studies, but not consistently.

Finally, I should mention that this paper contains some excellent quotes, such as "...Robert Barr, who arguably did not have a chance of winning...", "In retrospective reports of their affective state upon the announcement of Obama as the president-elect, McCain and Barr voters felt significantly more unhappy" and my favourite, "men who voted for John McCain or Bob Barr (losers)". That last one may be taken slightly out of context.

Stanton, S., Beehner, J., Saini, E., Kuhn, C., & LaBar, K. (2009). Dominance, Politics, and Physiology: Voters' Testosterone Changes on the Night of the 2008 United States Presidential Election PLoS ONE, 4 (10) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007543