
No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy - elorant
https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/largest-study-its-kind-no-evidence-testosterone-reduces-cognitive-empathy
======
EndXA
Abstract of the original paper:

> The capacity to infer others' mental states (known as ‘mind reading’ and
> ‘cognitive empathy’) is essential for social interactions across species,
> and its impairment characterizes psychopathological conditions such as
> autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. Previous studies reported that
> testosterone administration impaired cognitive empathy in healthy humans,
> and that a putative biomarker of prenatal testosterone exposure (finger
> digit ratios) moderated the effect. However, empirical support for the
> relationship has relied on small sample studies with mixed evidence. We
> investigate the reliability and generalizability of the relationship in two
> large-scale double-blind placebo-controlled experiments in young men (n =
> 243 and n = 400), using two different testosterone administration protocols.
> We find no evidence that cognitive empathy is impaired by testosterone
> administration or associated with digit ratios. With an unprecedented
> combined sample size, these results counter current theories and previous
> high-profile reports, and demonstrate that previous investigations of this
> topic have been statistically underpowered.

From:
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.106...](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.1062)

~~~
vanderZwan
So... is this a tentative win for the nurture crowd then? Or did they strictly
only show that there is no correlation between testosterone, without going
into alternative options?

EDIT: glaugh's comment[0] explains why it is not. TLDR: this research debunks
earlier research with a similar scope, but more long-term effects of
testosterone are not accounted for.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143846)

~~~
kerkeslager
Nature versus nurture is such a boring debate, honestly. The driving force
behind the nature versus nurture debate seems to be people attempting to use
science to justify their positions on pop philosophy, but the science rarely
actually connects to the pop philosophy position. It's basically: take a
specific scientific fact, try to use it to prove a very nonspecific idea
(nature or nurture?) and then use that nonspecific idea to prove a very
specific idea (for example: criminals can be rehabilitated because it's their
nurture, not their nature, that causes them to commit crimes). But that's just
thinly-veiled Bulverism: we can just study those specific ideas directly (we
know that current rehabilitation methods work well for some crimes and not for
others) and the very general ideas of nature versus nurture add nothing to the
conversation.

~~~
homonculus1
>(we know that current rehabilitation methods work well for some crimes and
not for others)

Somewhat off-topic but I find this interesting, can you elaborate on which
ones we know this for?

~~~
kerkeslager
I don't have anything resembling a full list, but rehabilitation seems to be
effective for drug-related crimes[1]. I was going to say that sex offenders
seem resistant to rehabilitation, but apparently that is no longer the case[2]
(good news!). The cited meta-analysis of studies from 1995-2002 found little-
no benefit from rehabilitation then, but the 2015 meta-analysis I linked shows
rehabilitation to have "proven" or at least "promising" results--this is
probably due to progress in rehabilitation methods.

It's widely believed that serial killers can't be rehabilitated, but as far as
I can tell there really isn't data to back that up (most of them stay in jail
forever, so we don't have recidivism data). So I don't think we can add serial
killers to the list of non-rehabilitatable (sp?) crimes.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#Drug-
related_crime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#Drug-related_crime)

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25575803](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25575803)

------
BurningFrog
Another victim in the "replication crisis" bloodbath for psychology.

Personally, I'm probably going to wait 5 years before I believe any psychology
science claim. Especially if it confirms something I already believe in :)

~~~
gerbilly
It's a kind HN received wisdom that all psychology studies are false or
invalid.

Personally, I see this blanket dismissal as one of the blind spots of our
otherwise intelligent community.

Perhaps because so many of us are engineers, and that it strokes our egos to
see the softer sciences fail?

~~~
naasking
> It's a kind HN received wisdom that all psychology studies are false or
> invalid.

Not _ALL_ , but the replication crisis has demonstrated that at least 2/3 of
such studies can't be replicated.

If you had a communication channel where 2/3 of your packets failed to
deliver, I'd say a statement like "this channel isn't reliable" is very
justified.

~~~
merpnderp
That's 2/3rd of medical research paper where the standards are the highest.
I'd be shocked if the rate was only a mere 66% everywhere else. You'd have to
be a fool to take on faith anything published today that wasn't replicated,
hopefully more than once.

~~~
naasking
According to [1], replication rates in psychology varied from 23% to 38%.
Social psychology was around 25%, while the more rigourous cognitive
psychology was around 50%.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_replication_rates)

------
glaugh
Most of the effects of administering testosterone (at least to men with
clinically low levels) take weeks or months to appear. For example, interest
in sex takes 3+ weeks to increase.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3188848/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3188848/)

And much of the impact of testosterone happens in utero (Young boys and girls
have similar levels; behavioral differences are driven by in utero exposure.)

This study seems to test a very narrow area where testosterone could influence
empathy

~~~
Jolter
So did the previous studies of testosterone exposure, from what I've
understood. So, this study still serves perfectly well to debunk them.

------
ve55
>In the largest study of its kind, results challenge the notion of autism as
reflecting an “extreme male brain.”

I don't see how this is related, unless you think the only 'maleness' that can
exist in a brain is testosterone levels. There are so many things that could
be tested and analyzed here besides testosterone levels.

~~~
tomlock
What's cool is that if people take a more nuanced view of gender and sex than
saying it can be measured by one test with only two options, it means they
can't take the narrow view that either of those things are binary. Here's
hoping!

~~~
djsumdog
I don't think that's what's being suggested at here at all. In the past few
years, there has been an overemphasis on "maleness" being bad and leading to
negative. In a lot of western social history (and even a lot of eastern
societies) there has always been the concept of "the divine feminine" (Mother
earth, goddesses and so fourth).

We've seen the growing emphasis of bad men and toxic masculinity; as if the
man has a propensity for toxicity (anecdotally we've all known toxic people
who were both men and women. They might generally be toxic in different ways,
but that does change that no biological sex has a monopoly on being shitty
human beings).

I think what's more interesting from the study is all the statements about
correlation with small samples sizes. As mentioned by other comments, even
this study doesn't seem remotely conclusive. It's focused on testosterone,
because men generally have way more of it. I think it's more of a conversation
starter on more research that should be done than anything else.

~~~
lanstin
Toxic masculinity isn't "being masculine is bad" it's "being so caught up in
social stereotypes of supposed masculinity that you become bad." Toxic
masculinity vs. healthy masculinity. At least in people that use the phrase
seriously that I've interacted with conversationally. Not to dispute that some
people think maleness is inherently bad (or that the supposed duality of
gender reflects a supposed duality of morality, what ever the sign of
correlation). Those simplistic thinkers are very persistent.

~~~
another-one-off
I'm struggling to think of any aspects of masculinity that I could safely
class as 'healthy' in the current climate.

For example, traditionally the view that males should be providers for the
family would have been considered a healthy aspect of masculinity. That
doesn't go unchallenged any more; for example there is a real concern out
there that men are too competitive and effective at securing high paid jobs.

It is an anecdote I suppose, but those involved in the gender activist
communities don't seem to allow such a thing as 'healthy masculinity' because
it supposes there is something positive can be exclusively/predominantly
masculine and the girls don't get involved. Bit of a non-starter as ideas go.

~~~
wsc981
> _For example, traditionally the view that males should be providers for the
> family would have been considered a healthy aspect of masculinity. That
> doesn 't go unchallenged any more; for example there is a real concern out
> there that men are too competitive and effective at securing high paid
> jobs._

I wonder if people in Asia and Africa feel the same. Or perhaps even in South-
America. To me it seems to be mostly a "Western" issue. I live in Thailand and
through the (admittedly limited) news sources I follow (Bangkok Post, South
China Morning Post, ThaiVisa) there doesn't seem to be much discussion/concern
here on gender, roles, what is and isn't toxic masculinity, etc...

~~~
brigandish
Which is also interesting because of the "third" sex, the large number of
_katoeys_ (ladyboys) in the country. The last time I was there, there was a
big demonstration to support and legally recognise them (a laudable aim). It
seems Thai expression of sexuality and gender doesn't rely on a denigration of
masculinity, which personally, I take as a clue to the legitimacy of efforts
to do so in the Anglosphere.

------
blackflame7000
I think a lot more work needs to be done in quantifying "cognitive empathy"
before we can begin to do studies like this. Their methodology for
quantification of something so complex is extremely primitive.

~~~
notduncansmith
I agree. At least the authors are more modest about the findings than the
headline:

> “[...] it’s important to note that the absence of evidence is not evidence
> of absence. We found that there is no evidence to support this effect of
> testosterone, but that doesn’t rule out any possible effects. From what we
> know, though, it seems that if testosterone does have an influence, the
> effect is complex, not linear. Reality is typically not that simple.”

------
tsumnia
Curious they built up so much steam about refuting past notions... but chose a
poor method (viewing actor's eyes). Paul Ekman has noted that assessing the
emotional state from a single picture is difficult. Not to mention unless
using genuine emotional faces, you're having actors "play" an emotion rather
than feel it (Method vs. Mamet style acting ignored)

~~~
phkahler
Couldn't agree with you more about the need for authenticity in tests of
reading emotions. How could you possibly say someone got it wrong when they
did not.

------
moosey
What I'm more interested in seeing is whether or not being in a dominant group
in society reduces empathy. Historically, we might have looked at the lack of
empathy of specific groups and made assumptions about the group in general,
but perhaps it simply has to do with whether or not that group finds itself
dominant in society whether it be economically, politically, or socially.

All of these groups in Western societies have been, and often still are,
dominated by men. Looking at how things are changing, with women slowly
gaining power in the workplace, I'm finding a lot of men are behaving
differently than I remember 30 years ago. Whether or not this is due to
gaining empathy, or due to fear of punitive measures, I don't know, but for me
personally I feel it is the former.

~~~
humanrebar
> All of these groups in Western societies have been, and often still are,
> dominated by men.

But not by all men. If all of the top 1% are men, for instance, there are
still 49% of men out there that are both make and not elite.

It's possible you are just observing different men now. Or observing men
differently.

~~~
moosey
I agree. I'm not denying this. This is exactly why it should be called
dominance and not privilege. And it does have real impacts on both groups.

------
username90
We already had a large study five years ago (n = 453) showing that
testosterone didn't have a significant effect on cognitive empathy (RMET).
However it found significant effects of testosterone on trait empathy, both
positive and negative depending on cortisol levels.

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40750-014-0017-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40750-014-0017-x)

Not sure why it wasn't cited in this paper.

------
learnstats2
> “Of course, the primary suspect when we have something that is sharply
> differentiated by sex is testosterone,” says Gideon Nave, an assistant
> professor of marketing in Penn’s Wharton School.

Is this a spoof article? Why would a professor of marketing at Wharton be
talking on this point? "Of course", this is a nonsense thing to say.

Maybe it needed a marketing expert to get funding for this.

~~~
tastroder
> Is this a spoof article? Why would a professor of marketing at Wharton be
> talking on this point?

Because he's a co-author of the paper, people in research collaborate, and his
publication list doesn't make this topic seem off in any way? Literally
clicking on the first instance of the name of the person you're complaining
about gives you enough information to make this comment unnecessary.

------
daenz
>Prior to this work, the strongest evidence for a link between testosterone
exposure and reduced cognitive empathy came in 2011 in a study that found
administering testosterone to healthy women reduced their performance on a
test of reading emotions. The results suggested the testosterone impaired
their performance.

That's interesting. Adult males typically have 7-8 times the levels that
females do, and females are more sensitive to it. I'd hypothesize that
injecting females with extra testosterone was just plain mentally
disorienting. I know a trans man who, after a few months of testosterone,
claimed it was "night and day" in how they felt about and processed the world.
Female biology isn't adapted to high levels of testosterone like a males
biology is.

~~~
azimmerlin
Trans woman here.

Cisgender men and women have different brain structures, and transgender
people's brain structures tend to resemble that of the gender that they
identify as[1]. So, for example, a trans woman like myself who was born male
will have a brain structure that resembles that of a cis woman, not a man.

> I know a trans man who, after a few months of testosterone, claimed it was
> "night and day" in how they felt about and processed the world

This has been my experience as well (except, the opposite direction,
obviously). The way I look at it, before I realized I am transgender, when
testosterone was the dominant sex hormone in my body, it was like putting the
wrong fuel in a car. It caused a whole slew of serious mental health problems.
Estrogen has allowed me to think more clearly, and process thoughts, feelings,
and emotions like I never could before. I'll never go back.

1\. [https://health.clevelandclinic.org/research-on-the-
transgend...](https://health.clevelandclinic.org/research-on-the-transgender-
brain-what-you-should-know/)

~~~
TheOperator
>Tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as

I hear this claim a lot but I've never actually understood what "resembles"
actually means. The brain structures that transgender people have don't match
typical male or female brains but how do you determine which brain transgender
brains resemble the most? What is the criteria? To me to determine which brain
trans brains were more similar to you would have to study a LOT of dimorphic
brain structures.

Some structures in transgender brains do resemble their sex or are sort of
androgynous and inbetween. So I don't know how accurate trans woman =
"resembles" a woman's brain actually is as a sweeping statement. In my
experience trans women have rarely acted completely like either gender. I've
seen trans women disperportionately engaging in masculine hobbies like
computers compared to the average cis woman.

~~~
sverona
Trans woman here. I agree that the neuroscience feels kind of flimsy. I would
further argue that neuroscience shouldn't be used as an argument in favor of
"accept trans women as being women" because, among other things, it can just
as quickly be turned around by people who seek to pull the You're Not Really
Trans Unless A Doctor Says So card on other trans folks.

We're women because we say we are - and that's really all there is to say
about it.

We are disproportionately into things like coding because, growing up, the
vast majority of us are socialized the same way as boys would be. Amazingly,
it turns out that in a vacuum, the activity of programming a computer isn't
actually gendered.

~~~
zwkrt
> Amazingly, it turns out that in a vacuum, the activity of programming a
> computer isn't actually gendered.

Also mirrored by the fact that other cultures do not experience this issue so
acutely.

~~~
pessimizer
Including US culture 50 or more years ago, when most programmers were women.

~~~
microcolonel
I'm of the impression that this is a misconception. 50 years ago, "programmer"
was a different job. Imagine if executives were just called secretaries now
and that's a decent analogy for what I think happened to programmers and
architects.

~~~
tomlock
I'm of the impression that back in 1959 when COBOL was released, with a team
of 7 designers with 3 women on it, based off the groundwork laid by Grace
Hopper, that the technical skill required to be a programmer was actually much
higher, and that the women involved in coding were making very technical
decisions about that field.

~~~
username90
Back then programming was basically applied mathematics, a field with many
women. Today programming is gluing together components in order to build
systems which is much more similar to engineering, a field with few women.

There are still many women among those who program mathematics (statisticians
etc), just that they are usually not called programmers. Also there is much
less demand for people who can program math than people who can glue together
libraries and create crud apps, so even if all math programmers are included
in the statistics they would get dwarfed by the app programmers.

Source of the combination mathematics and statistics being a gender balanced
field, above 40% women:
[https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-
wome...](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-
women/mathematics-and-statistics.cfm)

Engineering always being male dominated, around 15% women:
[https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-
wome...](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-
women/engineering.cfm)

Computer science gender balance getting lowered to engineering levels:
[https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-
wome...](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-
women/computer-sciences.cfm)

------
perardi
Does anyone have access to the paper, and not just the abstract?

I'm curious to see what the measured testosterone levels in the subjects'
blood ended up being. Did they push their testosterone levels to the high end
of "natural", something like 700 ng/dL, or did they push them into supra-
physiological bodybuilder levels?

(I'd love to see a study about the cognitive effects of harder anabolic
steroids, but somehow I doubt you could get an institutional review board to
sanction a double-blind experiment using trenbolone.)

~~~
username90
You can read the preprint here:
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/516344v3.full](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/516344v3.full)

------
acoye
What is "cognitive empathy"? Is it a subtype of empathy where the brain is
making a conscious work, or just a fancy way to say it ?

~~~
rmilejczz
Cognitive empathy is distinguished from affective empathy; put simply
cognitive empathy is your perception of another persons emotional state and
affective empathy is your perception of the correct emotional response to
another persons emotional state.

~~~
porknubbins
Interesting, I wonder if theres is a term for people with good cognitive
empathy but poor affective empathy because I often feel like I can read
someone body language and signals but usually have trouble expressing sympathy
to the extent that when I hear someone died I have to monitor closely to try
to react appropriately and not say anything weird.

~~~
zozbot234
Those would be the psychopaths and sociopaths, but I don't think you're among
them. These folks basically _lack_ the relevant social emotions altogether, so
they end up being quite materialistic and self-centered. They can and do
figure out that other emotions somehow exist and that they're socially
expected to show them, but they have no "hardwired" intuition for their
affective implications, so they'll have a _whole lot of trouble_ negotiating
constructively with others. They're deeply prone to thinking that everyone
else is just like themselves, self-centered and quite willing to screw others
in pursuit of their own goals.

I.e. their affective impairments do have significant implications on the
theory-of-mind/'cognitive' side of things, but those implications are _very_
different from the troubles of someone on the autistic spectrum. In a way,
they're the very opposite!

(In fact, if you're somewhat on the spectrum _and_ basically aware of what
makes psychopaths tick, you can even have a lot of fun spotting them _and_
interacting with them. Their attempts at superficial charm will most likely
fall flat, while their lack of deep integrity and engagement will be blatantly
obvious to you - but they'll probably be assuming the very opposite! So it's
quite easy to figure out what they're going for and anticipate their moves.)

------
Madmallard
Petersonian here:

Testosterone known to raise competitiveness. Perhaps those with higher
testosterone that are higher up in the dominance hierarchy just seem like they
lack empathy because they have less males to seek approval from.

------
AndrewDucker
"the 2011 study included women and the current one included men"

So, testosterone application doesn't instantly affect cognitive empathy in
men. But might still do in women.

------
deepnotderp
What was the timescale and number of administrations?

Is it possible that repeated exposure to elevated testosterone over a long
time period is the cause? Could studies be done on steroid users?

------
8bitsrule
I'm reminded of a science fiction story I read long ago. A group of space
explorers discovers an enormous metallic sphere. They open a port in its side
and climb down a ladder. They discover that the whole of the interior is a
vast machine, far beyond their capacity to understand. The last man out before
the port is closed accidentally drops a wrench. They listen to it clatter down
beyond earshot.

"Science is one thing, wisdom is another. Science is an edged tool, with which
men play like children, and cut their own fingers." — Sir Arthur Eddington

------
nestlequ1k
I'm really glad this stuff is being researched, male stereotypes like that
have never held true in my experience.

------
devwastaken
Isn't testosterone simply a byproduct of other hormonal processes? More of a
measurement of effect than cause?

~~~
shoes_for_thee
Ah, no. Adding extra testosterone to any human will cause them to become more
male by any measure of maleness.

~~~
adrr
And also more female as the testosterone is aromatized in estrogen.

------
AILove
First world problems.

------
anon1m0us
It's amazing that something so sexist could have been suggested without
backlash.

Imagine if studies indicated that low testosterone limited or in some way
hindered another desirable human capability. People have been fired for it and
reputations ruined.

Suggesting men are emotionally stunted. Oh that's fine.

~~~
skizm
I mean, you should be able to claim either if you have evidence. We should be
looking for truth, not virtue signalling by withholding findings because it
might hurt some people's feelings.

~~~
ping_pong
James Damore referenced scientific papers in his post and his intent got
twisted, he got vilified and subsequently fired by Google. He never said women
were unfit for engineering or women weren't as smart as men, he said that
Google should change the nature of engineering such that the career is more
appealing to a higher percentage of females.

Do you really want to be the one that endures an unfair attack and have your
intent twisted and ruin your career, just to try to prove a point? You would
be a stronger person than me, I would just pass at this point and move on.

------
eduren
EDIT: Disregard

Comment was:

This is testosterone administered to a fully formed brain. While it's still an
interesting result, I would hesitate to make extrapolations to brain-
developmental environments or developmental disorders.

~~~
danharaj
Did you overlook the part about finger digit ratios, which are a proxy for
testosterone exposure during development?

~~~
eduren
Ah, it seems I did overlook the significance of that part.

My apologies.

~~~
cjbprime
Kudos for an extremely humble reply! I think you might still have a good
point, though. :)

------
thrwway3947
Many people online report positive effects from taking testosterone
replacement therapy boosting their T level to the upper end of the natural
range.

I'm curious if this is worth doing (for no particular reason), as a sort of
steroid use. Apparently it can have slight balding effect but is worth it.

Has anyone here tried it, just for kicks? Could you list the effects on you? I
am curious how it would effect the HN demographic (which I'm part of.)

------
zarro
Notice the keen implication in the title that testosterone causes reduction in
cognitive empathy - making the reader now brainstorm ways to prove the
hypothesis instead of considering if its the correct question to be asking in
the first place.

To illustrate my point, consider if this was the title: There is no evidence
that being female reduces cognitive function.

~~~
tlb
The paper's abstract mentions that, "previous studies reported that
testosterone administration impaired cognitive empathy in healthy humans."

When you're trying to replicate previous studies but get a null result, it's
reasonable to put that right in the title.

------
JetBen
Ok cool, so I'm allowed to be a man again? Or is that still unacceptable
according to PC rules?

~~~
dang
Please be the kind of man who doesn't do this here.

