A recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology offers new insights into how testosterone might affect men’s interpretations of women’s social signals. Researchers found that testosterone heightened men’s sensitivity to specific friendly cues, particularly among men who viewed themselves as more attractive, though it did not broadly increase the tendency to overestimate women’s romantic interest.
Men’s tendency to sometimes over-interpret friendly cues from women as romantic interest, known as the “sexual misperception bias,” has long intrigued psychologists. Some suggest this bias may be a result of evolutionary pressures, given that misinterpreting interest might have had greater reproductive consequences than occasional misjudgments. In terms of reproductive success, a missed opportunity to connect with a mate could have more impact than a rare mistaken advance.
Testosterone is a hormone commonly associated with mating and social behaviors, and researchers believe it may influence men’s perception of social cues. Although previous studies have examined testosterone’s effects on behavior and attraction, little was known about whether it directly shapes men’s interpretations of social interactions with women. This study aimed to fill that gap by exploring testosterone’s effect on men’s perception of romantic interest in social scenarios.
“I have long been interested in bridging ultimate and proximate levels of explanation, that is evolutionary explanations of the why questions (what is X for?) and explanations of the how question (what are the mechanisms responsible for X?),” said study author Stefan M. M. Goetz, who is affiliated with Michigan State University’s Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health.
“The sexual overperception hypothesis has become a key example in evolutionary psychology. It suggests that due to the adaptive advantage of minimizing missed mating opportunities, men tend to overestimate sexual interest,” Goetz explained. “While researchers have studied many ‘how’ questions on sex differences in behavior, few have investigated whether testosterone, a hormone mediating male-typical traits, links to this bias—and none has shown causal evidence.”
The researchers studied a group of 190 heterosexual men aged 18 to 40. These participants, recruited through media, databases, and universities, were randomly assigned in a double-blind setup to receive either 11 milligrams of testosterone or a placebo. This meant neither the participants nor the researchers knew who had received the actual hormone.
After the administration, participants interacted briefly with a female research assistant, who was instructed to behave in a friendly but non-flirtatious manner. Two additional observers, unaware of the study’s purpose, later rated video recordings of the interactions to ensure the assistant’s behavior appeared consistently friendly.
Following the interaction, participants completed questionnaires to assess their perceptions of the assistant’s interest and their own levels of attractiveness. This setup allowed the researchers to investigate how participants’ self-perceived attractiveness influenced their interpretation of the interaction, especially among those who received testosterone.
The researchers found that testosterone did not broadly increase men’s tendency to overinterpret friendliness as romantic interest. However, testosterone appeared to increase sensitivity to specific friendly behaviors, but only in men who rated themselves as moderately or highly attractive. Men with lower self-perceived attractiveness did not show a stronger response to friendly cues after receiving testosterone, suggesting the hormone’s effect may depend on a person’s self-image.
Interestingly, testosterone also appeared to increase men’s tendency to “project” their own romantic interest onto the female assistant, particularly among those who saw themselves as more attractive. For example, men who rated themselves highly attractive and received testosterone were more likely to interpret friendly cues as romantic interest if they were also interested in a connection with her.
Goetz highlighted five key takeaways from the research: “First, and this is true of the sexual misperception literature in general, guys, when you first meet a woman, she is probably not interested in having sex with you,” he explained. “In fact, for both men and women, the base rate of interest is quite low; men’s just happens to be slightly higher, which leads to the well-documented overperception bias among men. Second, people tend to infer other people’s mental states by projecting our own.”
“Third, overperception is particularly acute if a man thinks that he is attractive. However, this doesn’t mean that a woman won’t ever be interested in him. For one, attractive men (self-perceptions are correlated) do receive greater sexual interest from others, and these men may learn to incorporate this into their perceptions despite the resultant overperception. Past research has suggested that, especially for attractive men, prolonged courtship can generate reciprocal attraction. However, this should not be taken as encouragement to pursue someone who has shown no interest—persistent unwanted advances constitute harassment and should be avoided.”
“Fourth, testosterone likely plays a role in generating overperception, particularly among men who think of themselves as being attractive, and increases the tendency to project one’s own interest,” Goetz continued.
“Finally, I want readers to understand that testosterone does not cause ‘masculine’ behavior in a straightforward, ineluctable manner. Gendered behaviors are the result of a complex mix of social and biological factors. Cultural stereotypes of testosterone as the sole cause of masculine behavior have not been borne out by the data. For one, in our study we did not observe a main effect of testosterone, meaning that other factors (individual differences and contextual factors), in conjunction with testosterone, influenced these behaviors. Additionally, while these effects were detectable across a large sample of men, knowing an individual’s testosterone level will not be very informative with respect to his behavior.”
While this study sheds light on the influence of testosterone on social perception, there are some limitations to consider. For one, the use of a single female confederate during a brief interaction may limit the generalizability of the findings, as her specific style of friendliness could have affected the results. In future research, incorporating a variety of female participants with differing interaction styles and involving more naturalistic settings could give a clearer picture of how testosterone affects perceptions in varied contexts.
“The interaction was very brief, lasting only three minutes,” Goetz said. “While people do rapidly form impressions of others, sussing out mental states over the course of a single interaction likely requires more time. I would like to see these results replicated and extended to situations that more closely resemble human courtship; that is, repeated encounters.”
Additionally, the study only provided a single dose of testosterone, limiting conclusions about the long-term effects of testosterone on social perception. Investigating longer-term hormone administration or comparing these results to those of natural hormonal changes could provide deeper insights into how testosterone influences these biases over time.
“We only tested the causal effect of acute changes in testosterone and only after a single dose,” Goetz explained. “(Basal testosterone was positively correlated with overperception, but in our design, it cannot be causally linked to perception—e.g., it could be the case that men who regularly overperceive sexual interest experience heightened testosterone as a result.) Many androgen-linked traits, including psychological traits, are to some degree shaped by organizational effects of androgens, which are largely permanent and emerge during developmental sensitive periods. Additionally, acute changes may become more apparent after repeated exposures.”
“The effect of current hormone levels often depends on these prior organizational effects. Intriguingly, facial masculinity may reflect levels of prenatal testosterone exposure; and facial masculinity has been linked to men’s self-perceived attractiveness. If facial masculinity is a useful proxy for organizational effects, including it in the statistical model could help to address whether the association with self-perceived attractiveness and perception stems from inflated self-appraisals and/or past experiences, or from organizational influences of testosterone which then amplify the influence of acute testosterone changes.”
“In a similar manner, some research indicates that sensitivity to acute changes in testosterone depends on basal levels,” Goetz added. “Reported in the supplemental material, we found that the effect of acutely raising testosterone on projection of long-term sexual interest was smaller among men with higher basal testosterone, suggesting that those with lower baseline levels were more sensitive to equivalent increases in testosterone. Thus, sensitivity to acute changes may be an important factor in moderating testosterone’s effects.”
These findings enhance our understanding of hormone-driven social behavior and pave the way for further research into the nuanced ways testosterone may shape human interactions, potentially validating evolutionary explanations.
“Ultimately, I believe greater attention to proximate mechanisms can help establish the validity of evolutionary explanations,” Goetz said. “If putatively adaptive sex differences such as men’s sexual overperception can be shown to be causally mediated by sex hormones, this strengthens evolutionary accounts while challenging purely sociocultural explanations. The same is true if the reverse is found.”
“I think this research illustrates the value of integrating different levels of analysis in psychology. Understanding both why a behavior exists (evolutionary explanations) and how it works (biological mechanisms) gives us a more complete picture. Plus, this kind of work helps demystify the role of hormones like testosterone in human behavior—showing they’re part of a complex system rather than simple triggers of stereotypical male behavior. Recent methodological advancements in behavioral endocrinology are finally enabling researchers to address testosterone’s causal role in human behavior.”
