In yet another triumph of Science™, a remarkably large group of researchers has discovered that it’s a bummer when your candidate loses a presidential election:
While past studies have shown that men’s testosterone levels differentially change in response to winning or losing an interpersonal
dominance contest, the present study provides novel evidence showing that vicarious victory and defeat via democratic elections has similar physiological consequences for male voters as do interpersonal dominance contests.
Basically, the researchers asked a bunch of undergrads to collect saliva samples throughout the evening of November 4 (“participants used a stick of sugar-free chewing gum to facilitate collecting up to 7.5 mL of saliva in a sterile polypropylene vial and discarded the gum,” in case you’re interested). The chart on the right shows what happened: after 8 pm, when John McCain’s fate was sealed, testosterone levels among men who supported him plummeted. Among women, nothing happened.
Put this together with the capuchin monkey experiment (which, sadly, yielded no interesting charts to post) and then ask yourself just how much difference a few million years of evolution makes. Answer: not nearly as much as we’d like to think.
