杏吧原创

DO YOU lack confidence? Does your self assurance fail you in high-powered
meetings? Forget all those self-help books. Psychologists have discovered that
the key to self-confidence is testosterone.

James Dabbs and his colleagues at Georgia State University, Atlanta, found
that people with high levels of the male hormone testosterone have a more
confident businesslike manner, even in the briefest social encounters.

The researchers measured the testosterone levels of 122 male and 236 female
students and then videotaped their behaviour in meetings and interviews.
Independent researchers then analysed the tapes to rate how confident their
behaviour was.

Students with high testosterone levels鈥攔oughly twice as much as the
low-testosterone group鈥攚ere 50 per cent more likely to behave
confidently.

鈥淎 confident manner is clearly important,鈥� says Dabbs. 鈥淭he outcome of a
dominance contest is often foreshadowed by action before the contest begins, as
athletes stare down opponents, lawyers intimidate witnesses and actors strut
onto a scene.鈥�

Although confidence can grow with age and may be a product of class or a
social strategy, 鈥渢hese findings suggest it also may come from high levels of
testosterone鈥�, says Dabbs. Other researchers have shown that testosterone
injections improve verbal performance in men. But being too pushy may be
counterproductive. 鈥淎 good salesman would have a better sense about when such a
strategy would work,鈥� says Dabbs.