John McCain wasn’t the only loser in November’s presidential election. On hearing the results of the polling, the men who voted for him suffered a drop in testosterone levels, according to a study by researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The study was reported Wednesday in the Web journal PLoS One.
The researchers analyzed spit samples from 183 men and women in Durham, N.C., and Ann Arbor, Mich., at 8 p.m., on November 4, 2008, and again at 11:30 p.m. when Barack Obama was declared the winner. Two more samples were collected after that, at 20-minute intervals.
Neither women nor male Obama voters showed significant changes in testosterone levels after the outcome was announced. But male supporters of John McCain and the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, posted lower levels of the steroid hormone (see graph above, by Steven Stanton, Duke University).
One of the co-authors, the Duke neuroscientist Kevin LaBar, says the study will be replicated this winter on fans at the Duke-North Carolina basketball game. “They’ll spit before the game and spit after the game, and we’ll just see,” he says. –Don Troop
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9 Responses to Electile Dysfunction
blue_state_academic - October 23, 2009 at 3:39 pm
What makes me think this will show up in about 11 1/2 months as the winner of an IgNobel for medicine?
celdjt12 - October 23, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Right on blue state. what’s that marvelous patronizing expression I’ve heard in the South — something like, isn’t this precious.
laoshi - October 24, 2009 at 8:09 am
As suspected, I can only conclude that the “women” who voted for Obama didn’t start out as women.
director19 - October 24, 2009 at 11:37 am
What a bunch of B.S. Just adds credence to the notion that our education system needs a complete restructuring. Let’s try to find somrthing important to study.
reinhardt - October 25, 2009 at 9:17 pm
This could be significant if the findings hold up in other types of competitions. Perhaps it leads us to understand why men, more so than women on average, affiliate and cheer for sports teams. Perhaps the group sentiment and victory crosses over into physical responses in the hormonal system.
rbrunson - October 26, 2009 at 5:38 am
Interesting. Not sure it qualifies for “short bus special”, but it may. What I find fascinating is that the folks, professors or whatever, who did this research are on the government payroll at some university.If they look, they may be able to find some VC firm in Silicon Valley that will fund them, and take the company public in a few years.
udoekaiko47 - October 26, 2009 at 10:42 am
The result of the experiment may help us understand certain maladies. Rather than being political about it, those (above) who cannot have anything good to say about anything in this country should know that small discoveries like this have helped to improve our lives. This is part of education, unless the critics know what education is that the rest of us don’t know. Besides Duke is private and even if government money is involved in the research, those of us who find this experiment useful are ourselves taxpayers.
hlwiley - October 26, 2009 at 11:35 am
So, essentially, men get turned on by power, and lose prowess when they lose prowess. I’d never have guessed it.
11272784 - November 3, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Hlwiley, you summed it up nicely. I bet that a study of men given any major disappointment or setback would reveal similar effects.