Testosterone and Its Influence on Emotion Recognition in Young, Healthy Males

Emotions are an integral part of our everyday lives and our social interactions. An ability to recognize emotions in the faces of others is essential in order to understand these emotional facets of interaction with others. Although Ekman describes the characteristics of basic emotions as universal, discrete and biologically based, there are a number of additional parameters that are assumed to influence the process of emotional recognition and interpretation (e.g. sex hormones). In our study, we investigated the influence of endogenous salivary testosterone on emotion recognition in n = 40 young, healthy males, using the Facially Expressed Emotion Labeling (FEEL) to measure their accuracy in recognizing the six basic emotions. Each emotion was presented at two different intensities (50% and 100%) in a randomized order. A Spearman correlation analysis revealed a negative correlation between testosterone and emotion recognition for disgust shown at an intensity of 50%. A subsequent median comparison (high vs. low testosterone) substantiated this difference and showed an additional trend of a lower ability to recognize fear (50% intensity) and a lower overall recognition rate for all emotions shown at 100% intensity. These subtle differences are discussed below in terms of dominance and status.