Role of hormones in human behaviour Flashcards
What are hormones?
Chemical substances that circulate in the bloodstream and only affect target organs. They are produced by glands in large quantities but disappear quickly. Their effects are very powerful and widespread in the body.
Where are hormones secreted from?
Endocrine glands.
What are hormones transported around the body in?
blooooooood ewwww
What do hormones target?
Target organs or other glands
Who are more aggressive females or males? And why?
Males. Due to testosterone
What is the role of testosterone?
It has a role in regulating social behaviour through its influence on areas of the brain implicated in aggression
What evidence is there that testosterone has a role in effecting aggression?
Giammanco- mice and Dolan- prisons
Where is cortisol secreted from?
The adrenal glands
What is the role of cortisol?
To help the body deal with the effects of stress.
What is the hypothesis called that suggests that there is an interaction between the systems responsible for regulating aggression and the stress response?
Dual-hormone hypothesis
Can female aggressive behaviour still be enhanced by testosterone?
Although levels in females are lower than males aggressive behaviour can still be enhanced by this hormone
How did Dabbs and Hargrove prove a correlation between testosterone and its effects on females?
Measured testosterone in the saliva of 87 female inmates of a maximum security prison. They foun that the degree of criminal violence used by these women was positively correlated with testosterone levels. Testosterone also correlated with the extent of the women’s aggressive dominance within the prison
Why is it hard to measure testosterone levels?
Partly because the concepts of testosterone level is more complex. Psychologists distinguish between baseline and fluctuating testosterone. Baseline is a person’s usual level of testosterone and is relatively stable across days, weeks and even months. But testosterone also fluctuates from one social encounter to another. Carre argue that baseline testosterone plays a less important role in human aggression that it does in animals. However baseline is oftne used in human research
What did Wagner et al notice when they castrated mice?
Castrated mice and observed that aggression levels dropped. When the castrated mice and injected with testosterone, their aggression levels (measured by biting attacks on other mice) rise back to pre castration levels. This clearly suggests that testosterone is a cause of aggression in mice and may cause aggression in humans too. Over 19 sessions, you can see that nouse aggression varied a lot, but after castration is clearly dropped. When the mice were injected with 150 micrograms of testosterone a day, their aggression crept back to the old levels.
What did Kalat report in men?
Reported that in 15-25 year old men, those with the highest levels of circulating testosterone also showed the highest levels of aggression behaviour, as measured by crime stats.
What did Barzman et al and cortisol in children in a psychiatric ward?
Carried out a study looking at children in a psychiatric hosptial. They recruited 17 boys in the hospital aged 7-9 years olde. The researchers aimed to see if they would find hormones in saliva related to aggressive behaviour. When the children were admitted they carried out 2 rating scaled of aggression (one of which was brief rating of aggression by children and adolescents). Within the first 24 hours after admission, salica were taken 3 times, once just after the boys woke up once 30 minutes later and once again between 3-7. Used a scale. Aggressive boys had less cortisol
