The Social Neuroendocrinology of Status

地位等级是我们日常社会互动的一部分，地位较高的人有许多优势，包括获得资源和改善健康。社会心理学和人格心理学的一个关键研究领域是了解地位等级是如何形成和维持的。谁在他们的团队中获得更高的地位(例如，领导职位)，以及如何获得？由于较高的社会地位与较低的社会地位相比会带来福利，因此对这些问题的回答对解释招聘、薪酬和健康等结果的差异具有根本意义。传统的关于地位的生物社会理论认为，睾酮浓度升高应该通过增强主导行为(如自信、自信)而导致更高的地位，但支持这些理论的证据并不一致。最近，俄勒冈大学的Pranjal Mehta和他的同事们提出，睾丸激素可能会与环境因素和其他激素相互作用，以调节与追求社会地位有关的行为。在这种双重系统方法的基础上，这项拟议的研究调查了睾酮对社会地位的影响在多大程度上取决于皮质醇，皮质醇是一种在身体和心理压力时期释放的激素。这项研究将对社会地位的基本生物社会机制产生新的见解。这些研究对设计心理干预措施具有许多意义，这些干预措施旨在改善地位较低、被边缘化的个人和群体的职业和健康结果。根据双激素假说，只有在皮质醇水平较低的情况下，睾丸激素才能提高社会地位。这项拟议的研究将检验这一新的假设，即睾丸激素和皮质醇应该联合策略性地激励行为，根据社会背景，通过支配和亲社会行为(例如，友好、慷慨)来改善自己的地位。这项拟议的研究将在模拟的工作面试环境、基于群体的社交互动和现实世界的地位等级中测试这种地位获得的生物社会机制。这些研究将社会人格心理学和行为神经内分泌学中的尖端方法结合起来，以解决研究目标，包括激素管理、内源性激素测量、社会背景的实验操纵和行为观察。这项研究考察了基线荷尔蒙浓度以及背景驱动的荷尔蒙随时间的波动，以了解内分泌系统如何动态地影响地位寻求行为和社会地位，并受到其影响。

Status hierarchies are a part of our everyday social interactions, and those with higher status have numerous advantages, including access to resources and improved health. A key area of research within social and personality psychology is to understand how status hierarchies are formed and maintained. Who attains higher status positions within their groups (e.g., leadership positions), and how? Because higher status in social hierarchies confers benefits compared to lower status, answers to these questions have fundamental implications for explaining disparities in outcomes such as hiring, pay, and health. Traditional biosocial theories of status propose that elevated testosterone concentrations should lead to higher status by enhancing dominant behaviors (e.g., confidence, assertiveness), but evidence in support of these theories is inconsistent. Recently Pranjal Mehta (University of Oregon) and his colleagues have proposed that testosterone may interact with contextual factors and other hormones to regulate behaviors implicated in the pursuit of social status. Building on this dual-systems approach, the proposed research investigates the extent to which testosterone's influence on social status depends on cortisol, a hormone released during periods of physical and psychological stress. This research will generate novel insights into the fundamental biosocial mechanisms of social status. These studies have numerous implications for designing psychological interventions aimed at improving professional and health outcomes among lower status, marginalized individuals and groups.According to the dual-hormone hypothesis, testosterone should enhance social status only when cortisol is low. The proposed research will test the novel hypothesis that testosterone and cortisol should jointly strategically motivate behaviors that improve one's status depending on the social context, through both dominance and pro-social behaviors (e.g., friendliness, generosity). The proposed research will test this biosocial mechanism of status attainment in a mock job interview setting, group-based social interactions, and real-world status hierarchies. The studies integrate cutting-edge methodologies within social-personality psychology and behavioral neuroendocrinology to address the research aims, including hormone administration, endogenous hormone measurement, experimental manipulations of social context, and behavioral observation. The research examines both baseline hormone concentrations as well as context-driven hormone fluctuations over time in order to understand how endocrine systems dynamically influence and are influenced by status-seeking behaviors and social status.