Salivary testosterone and cortisol among late adolescent male offenders

Abstract

The relationship of salivary testosterone and cortisol concentrations to personality, criminal violence, prison behavior, and parole board decisions was examined among 113 late-adolescent male offenders. Offenders high in testosterone committed more violent crimes, were judged more harshly by the parole board, and violated prison rules more often than those low in testosterone. No main effects for cortisol emerged. However, as expected, a significant interaction between testosterone and cortisol was found, in which cortisol moderated the correlation between testosterone and violence of crime. Cortisol may be a biological indicator of psychological variables (e.g., social withdrawal) that moderate the testosterone-behavior relationship. Paper and pencil measures of personality and behavior showed little relationship to hormones.

Testosterone, Cortisol and Empathy: Evidence for the Dual-Hormone Hypothesis

“…Based on these studies of testosterone and empathy, it could be hypothesized that high testosterone and low cortisol should be associated with lower empathy. This idea would also be congruent with the dual-hormone hypothesis proposed by Mehta and Josephs (Mehta and Josephs 2010), according to which physiological (Mehta and Josephs 2010;Zilioli and Watson 2012) and behavioral (Dabbs et al 1991;Popma et al 2007;Mehta and Josephs 2010) aspects of dominance should be more pronounced in individuals with high baseline testosterone and low baseline cortisol levels.…”

Salivary testosterone and cortisol are jointly related to pro-environmental behavior in men

“…In line with this, several studies have provided evidence for interaction effects of testosterone and cortisol on dominant and aggressive behavior (reviewed in Mehta & Prasad, 2015). For example, basal testosterone has been shown to be positively associated with aggression (Dabbs, Jurkovic, & Frady, 1991;Popma et al, 2007), dominance (Mehta & Josephs, 2010), testosterone rise in response to winning a competition (Zilioli & Watson, 2012), social status within a women's athletic team (Edwards & Casto, 2013), antisocial punishment (Pfattheicher, Landhäußer, & Keller, 2014), and risk-taking behavior (Mehta, Welker, Zilioli, & Carré, 2015) exclusively when cortisol levels were low. Conversely, in subjects with high cortisol the relationship between testosterone and aggressive or dominant behavior was non-existent Edwards & Casto, 2013;Pfattheicher et al, 2014;Popma et al, 2007), or even reversed (Mehta & Josephs, 2010).…”

The Role of Alcohol and Steroid Hormones in Human Aggression

“…Additionally, higher levels of testosterone have been reported in female psychiatric patients and in female prisoners with histories of both provoked and unprovoked violent behavior (Dabbs et al, 1988;Ehlers et al, 1980). In correlational studies, a significant link between testosterone levels and verbal aggression as well as physical violence has been documented in samples of spouse-abusing men (Dabbs et al, 1991;Soler et al, 2000). Self-reported aggression has also been found to be associated with testosterone in healthy men (Christiansen and Knussman, 1987), in male and female university students , and in male adolescence (Olweus et al, 1980;.…”