Biological SAQ (hormones)

What is testosterone?

A male hormone that plays a role in the development of a male during the years of puberty and higher levels of testosterone are seen in alpha male baboons and linked to competitive behaviour

What was the aim of Ronny and Hippel?

To investigate if a young man’s testosterone level played a role in higher risk taking behaviour which was skateboarding.

What’s the design of this study?

Counterbalanced repeated measures design

What was the method?

The men had to carry out 10 easy tasks and then 10 difficult tricks.

Half of the participants did the tricks in front of a male researcher whereas the other half did it in front of a young beautiful woman

They took a saliva sample to test testosterone levels after they did the tasks.

What were the results?

Men usually didn’t do the difficult tricks when performing in front of male researchers but they did the tricks when performing the tricks in front of the woman.

What’s the conclusion?

Levels of arousal from skateboarding wasn’t enough to increase testosterone levels.

Testosterone affects how the ventromedial prefrontal cortex works and its responsible for decision making