Trial reportBiological psychiatry2017
Exogenous Testosterone Rapidly Increases Aggressive Behavior in Dominant and Impulsive Men.
Trial report in Biological psychiatry, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 212 citations in OpenAlex.
- Hormonal changes of intimate partner violence perpetrators in response to brief social contact with women.Aggressive behavior · 2022Pooled it
- Anabolic-androgenic steroid administration increases self-reported aggression in healthy males: a systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental studies.Psychopharmacology · 2021Pooled it
- Investigating the effects of single-dose intranasal testosterone on economic preferences in a large randomized trial of men.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Trial
- Effects of testosterone enanthate on aggression, risk-taking, competition, mood, and other cognitive domains during 28 days of severe energy deprivation.Psychopharmacology · 2024Trial
- Testosterone eliminates strategic prosocial behavior through impacting choice consistency in healthy males.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- Does testosterone impair men's cognitive empathy? Evidence from two large-scale randomized controlled trials.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Trial
- Effect of exogenous testosterone on cooperation depends on personality and time pressure.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2019Trial
- Blunted insula activation reflects increased risk and reward seeking as an interaction of testosterone administration and the MAOA polymorphism.Human brain mapping · 2017Trial
- Review: Suicide and its relationship to aggression and impulsivity.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Relationship Between Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use, Aggression, and Narcissism in Male Bodybuilders.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- Testosterone Replacement Therapy Is Associated With Increased Incidence Rate of Vertebral Fractures: A Matched Retrospective Analysis.Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Global research & reviews · 2025Article
- The Androgen Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate Shows a Greater Relationship with Impulsivity than Testosterone in a Healthy Male Sample.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- The Optimal Time-lag for Testosterone Challenge Research Based on Salivary Profiles Following Different Doses of Transdermal Testosterone Administrations.Journal of molecular neuroscience : MN · 2023Article
- Misadventures in Toxicology: Concentration Matters for Testosterone-Induced Neurotoxicity.Toxics · 2023Article
- Mortality and morbidity in ageing men: Biology, Lifestyle and Environment.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2022Review
- The causal effect of testosterone on men's competitive behavior is moderated by basal cortisol and cues to an opponent's status: Evidence for a context-dependent dual-hormone hypothesis.Journal of personality and social psychology · 2022Article
- Beyond sex and aggression: testosterone rapidly matches behavioural responses to social context and tries to predict the future.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Testosterone administration does not alter the brain activity supporting cognitive and affective empathy.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Two Routes to Status, One Route to Health: Trait Dominance and Prestige Differentially Associate with Self-reported Stress and Health in Two US University Populations.Adaptive human behavior and physiology · 2022Article
- A Combined Administration of Testosterone and Arginine Vasopressin Affects Aggressive Behavior in Males.Brain sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAlthough traditional wisdom suggests that baseline levels of testosterone (T) promote aggressive behavior, decades of research have produced findings that have been largely weak and inconsistent. However, more recent experimental work suggests that exogenous administration of T rapidly potentiates amygdala and hypothalamus responses to angry facial expressions. Notably, these brain regions are rich in androgen receptors and play a key role in modulating aggressive behavior in animal models.
methodsThe present experiment extends this work by examining whether acutely increasing T potentiates aggressive behavior in men. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject design, healthy adult men (n = 121) were administered either T or placebo, and subsequently engaged in a well-validated decision-making game that measures aggressive behavior in response to social provocation. In light of prior correlational research, we also assessed the extent to which T's effects on aggressive behavior would depend on variability in trait dominance and/or trait self-control.
resultsExogenous T on its own did not modulate aggressive behavior. However, T's effects on aggression were strongly influenced by variation in trait dominance and trait self-control. Specifically, T caused an increase in aggressive behavior, but only among men scoring relatively high in trait dominance or low in trait self-control.
conclusionsThese findings are the first to demonstrate that T can rapidly (within 60 minutes) potentiate aggressive behavior, but only among men with dominant or impulsive personality styles.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.