Changes in male testosterone levels may indicate parental aptitude and ability.

ancapailldorcha

I just read about an interesting study conducted by the University of Chicago investigating a possible link between the testosterone response to a sexual stimulus, ie porn and a man’s attitude towards child-rearing. The authors measured salivary testosterone levels in male participants before and after they watched an erotic film.

The hundred young, unmarried, heterosexual men were given a questionnaire to determine their attitude towards children and another, known as the mini-k test which assesses how socially embedded an individual is. Men who scored low on the questionnaire were likely to experience an increase in testosterone during the video. The “k” in mini-k refers to an ecological term used to describe natural selection involving small, stable families and more parental care, contrasted with “r”. The mini-k results also correlated with the testosterone response.

The Economist has covered the study here and this is a link to the original publication in Psychological Science. It’s not free unfortunately.

silverharp

apparently your testosterone levels drop when you have kids , probably natures way of helping you stay with your partner

Wibbs

Not just when kids come along, a guys testosterone levels drop when he lives with a woman. Doesn't even have to be a partner, it seems to be any woman of child bearing age a guy lives with(apparently they found this in flat shares etc with no romantics going on).

There is a corresponding thing going on with women. In a load of repeated studies it has been shown that women find more masculine male faces more attractive when ovulating, but less masculine male faces when not, or pregnant. One fascinating one was research that seemed to show a woman who met her partner while on hormonal contraception was more likely to leave said partner if she came off contraception. Maybe because what she found attractive on the pill(which would mimic pregnancy hormones to some degree), wouldn't be as attractive when fully fertile.

Oh yet another interesting one was from Las Vegas strippers and pole dancers. They've noted that they get more tips if they're not on hormonal contraception.

Wibbs

On a personal level, I'd not be very "socially embedded" at all. Never really have been. Don't like kids really. They're alright, but not around me sorta thing. Babies really grind my gears. It's like another world to me when I see people sqweeeing over kids. I'm a broken toy that way. Relationship wise, save for two in the past, I prefer short term affairs kind of deal. The two outliers were both only kids and liked their own space, so even though we lived together we'd actually hang out maybe a couple of hours a day tops. My idea of hell is one of those family gatherings with different generations, like those Denny adverts on the telly.



Now as it turns out I found out at the tail end of my teens that I had higher than average testosterone. Like "jaysus keep an eye on your prostate" time. I'd not be the aggressive type, a small child has more muscles than me, so maybe this is how it came out? That and shaving at 13/14. I suspect both my own father and grandfather were of a similar type(the latter on both sides with it). They married late, had kids, but were not the hands on kind at all, standing out even among the old fashioned way of things.

These two (very broad)types of men would make sense from a survival angle. The ideal for a woman might be to have a couple of kids with the cavemen, then settle down with the suburban gentleman and have a couple of kids with him. Get a good spread of traits for every eventuality(actually I can think of a few women who have done just that, or very similar). IMH women have made modern humans by selecting for such traits, among others.