Abstract
Previous research suggests that competition-induced increases in men’s testosterone levels are associated with increases in their intrasexual competitiveness. Whether these relationships are also evident when considering naturally occurring changes in men’s testosterone levels is an open question, however. To investigate this issue, we carried out a longitudinal analysis of steroid hormone levels and men’s responses on the Intrasexual Competitiveness Scale. We found no evidence that men’s intrasexual competitiveness tracked naturally occurring changes in salivary testosterone, cortisol, or their interaction. However, men did report greater current (i.e., state) anxiety when cortisol was high, replicating previous findings. Our null results for steroid hormones and intrasexual competitiveness suggest that findings for relationships between competition-induced changes in testosterone and men’s intrasexual competitiveness may not necessarily generalize well to relationships with naturally occurring variation in steroid hormones.
