Salivary testosterone and cortisol are jointly related to pro-environmental behavior in men

ABSTRACT

Recently, cortisol has been suggested to moderate the positive relationship between testosterone and antisocial behavior. More precisely, high testosterone levels have been found to be related to aggressive or dominant behavior especially when cortisol levels were low. In the present study, we aimed to extend these findings to pro-environmental behavior as an indicator of prosocial behavior. In a first step, 147 male participants provided information on their everyday pro-environmental behavior by completing an online questionnaire on various energy-saving behaviors. In a second step, subjects provided two saliva samples for the assessment of testosterone and cortisol on two subsequent mornings after awakening. We found that testosterone was negatively related to pro-environmental behavior, but only in men with low cortisol. In conclusion, our findings provide first evidence for the joint association of testosterone and cortisol with everyday pro-environmental behavior. These results further reinforce the importance of considering interdependent hormone systems simultaneously rather than focusing on a single hormone.

KEYWORDS:

• Testosterone
• cortisol
• pro-environmental behavior
• prosocial behavior
• testosterone/cortisol ratio

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Firouzeh Farahmand for performing the hormone analyses, Maya Ramseier for her help in collecting the data, and Bruno Rütsche for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ERC Advanced Grant “Sources of Legitimacy in Global Environmental Governance” [grant 295456].