Psychology speaker series continues Thursday

The Department of Psychology’s Speaker Series continues this week with a talk by Nipissing postdoctoral fellow, Shawn Geniole, PhD on Thursday, October 18 at 11:30 a.m. in F213.  The lecture will explore the role of testosterone in reducing the threat premium in humans.

Below is an overview of Thursday’s topic:

Like other animals, humans are sensitive to facial cues of threat. Recent evidence suggests that we use this information to dynamically calibrate competitive decision-making over resources, ceding more resources to high threat individuals (who appear more willing/able to retaliate) and keeping more resources from low threat individuals (who appear less willing/able to retaliate). Little is known, however, about the biological factors that support such threat assessment and decision-making systems. In a pre-registered, placebo-controlled, cross-over testosterone administration study (n = 118 men), we show for the first time that testosterone increases perceptions of threat while simultaneously decreasing this signal’s impact on competitive decision-making: participants ceded more resources to high (vs low) threat individuals (replicating previous work), but this effect was blunted by testosterone – which selectively reduced the amount of resources ceded to those highest in threat. Thus, our findings suggest that testosterone influences competitive decision-making by recalibrating the integration of threat-related signals into this decision-making process.

Refreshments will be served.  All are welcome.