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Updated: Sep 16, 2025

Combining Behavioral Endocrinology and Experimental Economics: Testosterone and Social Decision Making
Published on: March 2, 2011
Testosterone Administration Induces a Red Shift in Democrats
Rana Alogaily1, Giti Zahedzadeh1, Kenneth V Pyle1
1Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, USA.
Objective:
An experiment was run to test if a testosterone administration would influence the political preferences of 136 healthy males.
Method:
Synthetic testosterone or placebo was administered to participants who identified the strength of their political affiliation.
Results:
Before the testosterone treatment, we found that weakly affiliated Democrats had 19% higher basal testosterone than those who identified strongly with the party (p = 0.015). When weakly affiliated Democrats received additional testosterone, the strength of their party affiliation fell by 12% (p = 0.01), and they reported 45% warmer feelings towards Republican candidates for president (p < 0.001). Testosterone administration did not affect political preferences for strongly affiliated Democrats or strong or weak Republicans.
Conclusion:
Our results demonstrate that testosterone induces a "red shift" among weakly affiliated Democrats, providing evidence that testosterone affects political preferences.
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