Testosterone levels and their associations with lifetime number of opposite sex partners and remarriage in a large sample of American elderly men and women

Pollet, Thomas, van der Meij, Leander, Cobey, Kelly and Buunk, Abraham (2011) Testosterone levels and their associations with lifetime number of opposite sex partners and remarriage in a large sample of American elderly men and women. Hormones and Behavior, 60 (1). pp. 72-77. ISSN 0018-506X

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Abstract

Testosterone (T) has been argued to modulate mating and parenting behavior in many species, including humans. The role of T for these behaviors has been framed as the challenge hypothesis. Following this hypothesis, T should be positively associated with the number of opposite sex partners a male has. Indeed research in humans has shown that T is positively related to the number of opposite sex partners a young man has had. Here we test, in both men and women, whether this relationship extends to the lifetime number of sex partners. We also explored whether or not T was associated with current marital status, partnership status and whether or not the participant remarried. Using a large sample of elderly men and women (each sample n > 700), we show that T is positively and sizably associated with the number of opposite sex partners in men. When controlling for potential confounding variables such as educational attainment, age, BMI, ethnicity, specific use of a medication and time of sampling this effect remained. For women, the relationship between T and number of opposite sex partners was positive but did not prove to be robust. In both men and women there was no evidence for an association between T and current marital status and partnership status (being in a relationship or not). However, remarriage was positively associated with T, but only in males. Results are discussed with reference to the literature on T and sex partners, remarriage and more broadly the challenge hypothesis.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Challenge hypothesis; Salivary testosterone; Sexual behavior; Mating success; Sex hormones
Subjects:	C800 Psychology
Department:	Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Becky Skoyles
Date Deposited:	26 Sep 2017 08:21
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2019 16:29
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/32034

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