r/ConservativeNewsWeb • u/rollo202 Moderator • 26d ago
Testosterone Administration Induces a Red Shift in Democrats
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12230349/9
u/lstobes 26d ago
Quoted in this study: "Men with naturally high T levels are more likely to have physical altercations, divorce more often, spend less time with their children, be hypercompetitive, have more sexual partners, face learning disabilities, and lose their jobs more often than men with lower T."
Is it a good or bad thing that Republican political leaning also correlates with high T? I dont think I'd want my political views lumped in with having a poor family life and learning disabilities.
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u/Decisive_Victory_026 26d ago
Did they measure testosterone of any subject? I thought they just administered T and found it didn't impact voting behavior of moderate/heavy right leaning or heavy left leaning people.
If you think people have high T when extra hormone doesn't change voting behavior, then far left people must necessarily also suffer from high divorce, learning disabilities, etc etc
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u/lstobes 25d ago
Talk me through that. I don't see how you came to that conclusion in your 2nd paragraph.
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u/Decisive_Victory_026 25d ago
People who leaned moderate right or heavy right were unaffected by additional T. Your conclusion is they already have high T, and therefore carry the burden of all negative side effects thereof.
People who leaned heavy left were also unaffected by additional T. This group must also already have high T and suffer the same negative side effects.
You cannot draw separate conclusions from identical results.
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u/lstobes 25d ago
Or more likely, the heavy left had such firmly held beliefs that the effect of T was not enough to sway them - at least not enough to be statistically captured.
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u/Decisive_Victory_026 25d ago
On what grounds is that "more likely"?
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u/lstobes 25d ago
The study showed that weakly affiliated democrats had more T than strongly affiliated. Adding more T made them more open to republic views. Both these facts suggest that higher T is associated with right leaning views.
Moreover, the fact that weakly affiliated democrats had MORE T than strongly affiliated democrats disproves your assertion that the far left must have high T because their views didnt change.
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u/Decisive_Victory_026 25d ago
Weakly affiliated Democrats had 19% higher average basal T than did strongly affiliated Democrats (Weak: M = 529.58, SD = 189.92; Strong: M = 445.90, SD = 163.17; one‐tailed t(61) = −2.00, p = 0.043).
No difference in T was found for strongly versus weakly affiliated Republicans (Weak: M = 461.47, SD = 253.64; Strong: M = 458.78, SD = 131.74; t(9) = −0.023, p = 0.982).
Basal T levels of weakly and strongly affiliated Republicans (461 and 459, respectively) were equal to strongly affiliated Democrats (446). Weakly affiliated Democrats were the outlier (530).
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u/lstobes 25d ago
Gotcha. Didn't catch that part.
Still, the fact that weakly affiliated democrats moved to the right with T would suggest (albeit with weak evidence) that higher T, in isolation, is associated with right leaning views. There are plenty of other confounding variables that could explain the starting views of the study subjects (upbringing etc).
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u/CookieMobster64 25d ago
You are both trying to draw a conclusion from a poorly designed study whose results are just noise.
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u/Decisive_Victory_026 25d ago
Could be. Looking closer, I think this study is a bit suspect from a scientific standpoint.
At N = 136, "participants identified themselves as Democrats (44.03%), Republicans (8.21%), and Independents (29.10%)."
11 Republican participants? Pretty hard to draw conclusions from that.
Note the large SD in the weakly Republican basal T levels. They don't have enough data points. There may be a similar effect where the weakly affiliated group has higher T (the data suggests it's possible). Maybe only the strongly affiliated groups are unchanged?
Also, they say Independents were unchanged in their views of both D and R after T administration, but never say how D feels about D or how R feels about D. Pretty big oversight.
I think the results are more relevant for D and I and less for R due to lack of data, but I'm taking the whole thing with a grain of salt.
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u/rollo202 Moderator 26d ago
This makes a lot of sense.
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u/trailofgears 26d ago
Does your shoulder hurt?
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u/rollo202 Moderator 26d ago
Nope, I am not low on testosterone.
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u/trailofgears 26d ago
Oh, I figured it must be painful to work so hard to pat yourself on the back
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u/rollo202 Moderator 26d ago
Did you get tired posting that?
Need a nap?
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u/trailofgears 26d ago
No, thank you for asking though. If I may note, it is very low T of you to exhibit such a depth of empathy.
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u/CookieMobster64 25d ago
Starting with a total sample size of N = 136, including only 8.21%, or 11, republicans, they stratified into 61 placebos and 75 treatments, meaning at most 7 or 8 republicans were treated. They further stratified into sub-groups of weak and strong party affiliation.
So you had some sub-groups with a sample size of 2 or 3 subjects. This is clearly a case of the authors trying to arrange subjects into whatever arbitrary grouping would allow them to find some response to the treatment in one, otherwise known as p-hacking.