Investigating associations between cortisol, testosterone and emotion regulation in healthy young men

Emotion regulation refers to the processes through which individuals modify their emotional states using various strategies. One widely studied strategy is cognitive reappraisal, involving reinterpretation of emotional stimuli to alter emotional responses. Evidence suggests that cortisol is associated with more effective cognitive reappraisal, whereas associations between cognitive reappraisal and testosterone remain unclear. Because cortisol and testosterone interact bidirectionally, with each hormone capable of modulating the other's effects on behavior, examining their interaction may provide broader insight into how hormones relate to emotion regulation. In this study, 137 male participants completed an emotion regulation task in which they either passively viewed or cognitively reappraised emotional visual stimuli. After each stimulus, participants rated their emotional negativity. The self-reported negativity during the reappraisal condition served as an index of reappraisal effectiveness. Participants also completed a questionnaire assessing habitual use of cognitive reappraisal and provided saliva samples to assess basal (i.e., pre-task) cortisol and testosterone concentrations. Results showed that higher cortisol was associated with lower self-reported negativity during cognitive reappraisal among habitually reappraising males. This effect was small (f² = 0.066) and present only when stimuli of low intensity were used. Neither testosterone alone nor in interaction with cortisol or trait reappraisal was significantly associated with self-reported negativity during reappraisal. Study findings highlight the importance of considering hormonal profiles when examining emotion regulation in males and suggest that basal cortisol may be associated with the extent to which habitual reappraisal tendencies translate into effective regulatory performance.