Cardiovascular and testosterone responses to contested dominance in women

Examined cardiovascular and testosterone responses of dominant and submissive women to an acute stressor involving contested dominance. Twenty (10 dominant, 10 submissive) university students rated their dominance to a predefined reference group, participated in a task that involved debating with a trained technician, and were continuously provided with bogus feedback throughout the task concerning biochemical substances in their blood that purportedly covaried with dominance. Covariance analyses revealed that dominant women were much more reactive to the stressor in several cardiovascular parameters than those classified as submissive. Serum testosterone did not vary as a function of the experimental manipulation, and at each measurement point, dominant and submissive subjects had essentially identical serum levels of this hormone. Interestingly, however, baseline testosterone for the dominant group was related to changes in systolic blood pressure (i.e., gain scores computed as task response minus baseline values).