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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 17, 2026

Combining Behavioral Endocrinology and Experimental Economics: Testosterone and Social Decision Making

Combining Behavioral Endocrinology and Experimental Economics: Testosterone and Social Decision Making

Published on: March 2, 2011

Testosterone abolishes implicit subordination in social anxiety.

David Terburg¹, Supriya Syal², Lisa A Rosenberger³

¹Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Psychoneuroendocrinology

|July 25, 2016

Summary

Social anxiety involves habitual submission. Testosterone administration can reduce this implicit subordination, offering new therapeutic avenues for social anxiety disorder.

Keywords:

Dominance Eye tracking Social anxiety Submissiveness Testosterone

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Area of Science:

Psychoneuroendocrinology
Social Neuroscience
Clinical Psychology

Background:

Social anxiety is theorized as a learned subordinate tendency from social defeat.
Testosterone influences dominance behaviors across species and may hold therapeutic potential.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if submission tendency is an implicit mechanism in social anxiety.
To determine if testosterone administration can alleviate this implicit subordination.

Main Methods:

Interactive eye-tracking was used to measure gaze aversion from subliminal angry eye contact.
Two studies were conducted: Study-1 assessed social anxiety and subordination, Study-2 examined testosterone's effect.

Main Results:

Socially anxious individuals showed faster gaze aversion from angry eyes, indicating implicit subordination.
Testosterone administration abolished this gaze aversion effect in a placebo-controlled manner.

Conclusions:

Implicit subordination is a key mechanism in social anxiety.
Testosterone shows promise as a treatment targeting dominance-subordination pathways in social anxiety.