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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Politics / Sex McCain Supporters' Testosterone Levels Dropped On Election Night

Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 12:07 PM

An interesting study out of Duke University...

Political elections are dominance competitions. When men win a dominance competition, their testosterone levels rise or remain stable to resist a circadian decline; and when they lose, their testosterone levels fall. However, it is unknown whether this pattern of testosterone change extends beyond interpersonal competitions to the vicarious experience of winning or losing in the context of political elections.... The present study investigated voters’ testosterone responses to the outcome of the 2008 United States Presidential election. 183 participants provided multiple saliva samples before and after the winner was announced on Election Night. The results show that male Barack Obama voters (winners) had stable post-outcome testosterone levels, whereas testosterone levels dropped in male John McCain and Robert Barr voters (losers). There were no significant effects in female voters.

You can download the PDF here.

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Comments (11) RSS

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Based on performance since then it's fair to say election night was the last time any testosterone was present in the Obama camp...

Posted by Dickless Wonders on October 21, 2009 at 12:13 PM

What an odd thing to study.

Posted by very bad homo on October 21, 2009 at 12:19 PM

RE: Robert Barr voters. So this applies even when they know they're going to lose? That's weird.

Posted by keshmeshi on October 21, 2009 at 12:21 PM

Actually a very well known effect: has been shown to happen with football, basketball, and soccer fans as well -- when their team has lost. ("vicarious" is more than just a word)

Posted by Timrrr on October 21, 2009 at 12:30 PM

Gay men would surely have messed up this study, I know that despite my overwhelming support for Obama when I heard about prop 8 my testy levels plummeted.

Posted by Jersey on October 21, 2009 at 1:14 PM

@4 I am starting to see a correlation between sports viewers and republicans.......I knew there was a reason I hated sports so much......

Posted by Andy_Squirrel on October 21, 2009 at 1:15 PM

Low testosterone among McCain supporters? Hmm, that explains why gun sales increased

Posted by sall on October 21, 2009 at 1:40 PM

Well, that explains the hair on my back...

Posted by The Amazing Jim

on October 21, 2009 at 2:40 PM

@2,
Yeah, it does look odd. Lots of odd basic research stuff like this helps guide applied research in stuff like domestic violence and so on. Weird things like this are cogs in a bigger machine.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on October 21, 2009 at 3:05 PM