Coates has previously shown that traders who register the highest levels of testosterone in the morning make the most money through the course of the day, and this new study adds to the earlier work by suggesting that their advantage may have been innate, not learned. Although it may come as no surprise that testosterone could be a big player in the mano-a-mano world of Wall Street, the research offers the best evidence yet of the hormone’s role in determining which would-be Masters of the Universe will thrive. It also supports the growing recognition that biology plays a role in complex human behaviors, and that financial choices in particular are often less rational than economists appreciated [Washington Post].
And that’s why the economists are all wrong about how long our shit’s gonna be in trouble. Their models are based on rationality. But in reality, humans are less rational than they think. Especially these financial traders, which is where all the dumb jocks have wound up (very high income-to-education ratio). And speaking of testosterone (or testicle-juice as I lovingly refer to it just this once), here’s some awesomely amusing quotes from an related article:
Hierarchy in place, it’s time to do your experiment. Take that third-ranking monkey and give him some testosterone. None of this within- the-normal-range stuff. Inject a ton of it, way higher than what you normally see in rhesus monkeys, give him enough testosterone to grow antlers and a beard on every neuron in his brain. And, no surprise, when you check the behavioral data, he will probably be participating in more aggressive interactions than before.
So even though small fluctuations in the levels of the hormone don’t seem to matter much, testosterone still causes aggression, right? Wrong. Check out number 3 more closely. Is he raining aggressive terror on everyone in the group, frothing with indiscriminate violence? Not at all. He’s still judiciously kowtowing to numbers 1 and 2 but has become a total bastard to numbers 4 and 5. Testosterone isn’t causing aggression, it’s exaggerating the aggression that’s already there.
Another example, just to show we’re serious. There’s a part of your brain that probably has lots to do with aggression, a region called the amygdala. Sitting near it is the Grand Central Station of emotion- related activity in your brain, the hypothalamus. The amygdala communicates with the hypothalamus by way of a cable of neuronal connections called the stria terminalis. (No more jargon, I promise.) The amygdala influences aggression via that pathway, sending bursts of electrical excitation that ripple down the stria terminalis to the hypothalamus and put it in a pissy mood.
Once again, do your hormonal intervention: flood the area with testosterone. You can inject the hormone into the bloodstream, where it eventually makes its way to the amygdala. You can surgically microinject the stuff directly into the area. In a few years, you may even be able to construct animals with extra copies of the genes that direct testosterone synthesis, producing extra hormone that way. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The key thing is what doesn’t happen next. Does testosterone make waves of electrical excitation surge down the stria terminalis? Does it turn on that pathway? Not at all. If and only if the amygdala is already sending an excited volley down the stria terminalis, testosterone increases the rate of such activity by shortening the resting time between bouts. It’s not turning on the pathway, it’s increasing the volume of signaling if it is already turned on. It’s not causing aggression, it’s exaggerating the preexisting pattern of it, exaggerating the response to environmental triggers of aggression.
The part about putting the hypothalamus in a pissy mood is probably the best thing I’ve ever read in a scientific article.