893: Testosterone

Well, I, I, I just think, like, we're opening a whole can of worms here that we don't wanna be, uh, doing.

It's all very, well, this whole thing's kind of a mess diplomatic-wise.

[laughs]

How so?

Like, either, you know, I mean, either we'll walk away from this finding out that Starlee has more testosterone than I do, and she'll end up being incredibly upset, and I'll be upset, and everyone'll just be upset.

[laughs]

You know what I mean? What do we hope to gain, really, from all of this? This whole thing is gonna lead to heartbreak somehow.

I've been thinking a, a lot about it, and w- and f- I can't really decide whether I want to have more or, or if I wanna have less.

This is Wendy, another producer.

I don't know.

Like, having more makes me seem, um, like an [beep] [laughs]

[laughs]

And having not enough makes me seem like a, like a pushover, sucker.

For the men, I think it'll be a big deal.

This is Julie, the senior producer of our program.

I think it'll change all your interactions with each other.

You'll n- know when you're talking to each other who beat you.

I think it'll change everything.

Nonetheless, we marched toward the abyss.

To find out what personality traits actually correlate with high testosterone and low testosterone, we check with somebody who's done a lot of research on the subject, James Dabbs of Georgia State University, author of a book called Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers: Testosterone and Behavior.

The most simple thing I would say is it leads to a certain, uh, boldness and, uh, fearlessness and confidence in a person's behavior.

Uh, they tend to focus upon what they do, uh, m- move forward with less, uh, conflict.

The downside is they don't pay attention to things going on around them, so they get, uh, blindsided by, uh, accidents and, and other things going on.

What are, what are some of the misconceptions you run into?

Well, well, well, they think it makes them, uh, manly and, uh, heroic and, uh, virile and, uh, sexual, and, uh, which is not really true.