专题：Nature报道
荷尔蒙已知调节动物之间的社会互动，其中睾丸激素传统上被认为诱导侵略性行为。虽然这种归类方式被外推到了人类（于是便会有“由睾丸激素刺激的”行为这样为人们所熟悉的概念），但睾丸激素是否真的能促进反社会行为则不清楚。
在一个讨价还价的博弈中，施用睾丸激素被发现会增加公平行为、减少冲突和增强社会互动。但当让实验对象相信他们被施用了睾丸激素、而不管是否真是这样时，他们的行为则会被那些认为自己所接受的是安慰剂（同样不管是否真是这样）的实验对象更为不公平。所以，人们以为睾丸激素增加所产生作用是负面的、反社会的，这种认识之强烈足以诱导负面社会行为，即便生物学结果实际上是相反的。
推荐原始出处：
Nature 463, 356-359 (21 January 2010) | doi:10.1038/nature08711
Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviournear-final version
C. Eisenegger1, M. Naef1,2, R. Snozzi1, M. Heinrichs3 " E. Fehr1
1 Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland
2 Department of Economics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK
3 Department of Psychology, Laboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, University of Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
4 Correspondence to: C. Eisenegger1E. Fehr1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.E. or E.F.
Both biosociological and psychological models, as well as animal research, suggest that testosterone has a key role in social interactions1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Evidence from animal studies in rodents shows that testosterone causes aggressive behaviour towards conspecifics7. Folk wisdom generalizes and adapts these findings to humans, suggesting that testosterone induces antisocial, egoistic, or even aggressive human behaviours. However, many researchers have questioned this folk hypothesis1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, arguing that testosterone is primarily involved in status-related behaviours in challenging social interactions, but causal evidence that discriminates between these views is sparse. Here we show that the sublingual administration of a single dose of testosterone in women causes a substantial increase in fair bargaining behaviour, thereby reducing bargaining conflicts and increasing the efficiency of social interactions. However, subjects who believed that they received testosterone―regardless of whether they actually received it or not―behaved much more unfairly than those who believed that they were treated with placebo. Thus, the folk hypothesis seems to generate a strong negative association between subjects’ beliefs and the fairness of their offers, even though testosterone administration actually causes a substantial increase in the frequency of fair bargaining offers in our experiment.
