Basal testosterone, leadership and dominance: a field study and meta-analysis Citation for published version (APA): van der Meij, L., Schaveling, J., & van Vugt, M. (2016). Basal testosterone, leadership and dominance: a field study and meta-analysis. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 72, 72-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.06.005 Document license: CC BY-NC-ND DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.06.005 Document status and date: Published: 01/10/2016 Document Version: Publisher’s PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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Oct. 2021 Psychoneuroendocrinology 72 (2016) 72–79 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Psychoneuroendocrinology jo urnal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psyneuen Basal testosterone, leadership and dominance: A field study and meta-analysis a,∗ b a Leander van der Meij , Jaap Schaveling , Mark van Vugt a Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands b Centre for Leadership & Management Development, Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands a r a t i b s c t l e i n f o r a c t Article history: This article examines the role of basal testosterone as a potential biological marker of leadership and hierarchy in the workplace. First, we report the result of a study with a sample of male employees Keywords: from different corporate organizations in the Netherlands (n = 125). Results showed that employees with Leadership higher basal testosterone levels reported a more authoritarian leadership style, but this relationship Testosterone was absent among those who currently held a real management position (i.e., they had at least one Dominance subordinate). Furthermore, basal testosterone levels were not different between managers and non- Managers managers, and testosterone was not associated with various indicators of status and hierarchy such Authoritarian Meta-analysis as number of subordinates, income, and position in the organizational hierarchy. In our meta-analysis (second study), we showed that basal testosterone levels were not associated with leadership in men nor in women (9 studies, n = 1103). Taken together, our findings show that basal testosterone is not associated with having a leadership position in the corporate world or related to leadership styles in leaders. We suggest that basal testosterone could play a role in acquiring leadership positions through dominant and authoritarian behavior. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction There is some reason to believe that testosterone may be related to leadership because high testosterone levels have frequently been Leadership styles are plastic, since leadership may be executed related to high social status (Mazur and Booth, 1998), and lead- in different ways by different people depending upon contextual ers are considered of higher social status than non-leaders. Two (Osborn et al., 2002) and personality factors (Hogan et al., 1994). mainstream theories on testosterone and behavior are consistent The plasticity in leadership styles and behavior is evident in the with this idea. According to the biosocial theory of status, gaining scientific literature that has identified a myriad of different lead- status -for instance by becoming a leader- increases testosterone ership styles in more than half a century of research on this topic levels whereas losing decreases it (Mazur and Booth, 1998), and (Yukl et al., 2002). An intriguing research question is whether these according to the challenge hypothesis, testosterone levels increase different leadership styles also have different or the same biolog- in contexts relevant for reproduction such as when men strive ical underpinnings. One of the potential biological mechanisms for status (Archer, 2006). A different reason why leadership and underlying leadership may be sustained levels of the hormone testosterone may be related is that testosterone has frequently testosterone. The aims of this study are to investigate if basal testos- been associated with dominance displays (Archer, 2006; Mazur terone levels are related to different leadership styles and if basal and Booth, 1998), and although leadership may be attained in testosterone levels are associated with hierarchical positions in the different ways such as through prestige, it may also be gained workplace. through dominance. Indeed, various self-reported measurements of dominance have been shown to be related to high basal testos- terone levels (Christiansen and Knussmann, 1987; Daitzman and Zuckerman, 1980; Gray et al., 1991; Sellers et al., 2007; Turan et al., ∗ Corresponding author at: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Behavioural 2014; van der Meij et al., 2008), although a few studies show no and Movement Sciences, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The relationship for self-reports (Johnson et al., 2007; Slatcher et al., Netherlands. 2011). Furthermore, there is mixed evidence that high basal testos- E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L. van der Meij), [email protected] (J. Schaveling), [email protected] (M. van Vugt). terone levels predicts implicit need for power (a non-declarative http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.06.005 0306-4530/© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4. 0/). L. van der Meij et al. / Psychoneuroendocrinology 72 (2016) 72–79 73 measurement of dominance, see Schultheiss, 2013). Finally, dom- effect (Josephs et al., 2006). According to this effect, individuals inance as observed and rated by others is also related to high who have high basal testosterone levels but have a low status posi- basal testosterone levels (Ehrenkranz et al., 1974; Slatcher et al., tion experience arousal and distress, and try to actively reduce this 2011). Interestingly, dominance has also been linked to testos- state by increasing their dominance motivation. Indeed, labora- terone in various non-human mammal species (Hirschenhauser tory studies have shown that when manipulating status by rigging and Oliveira, 2006). For example, high basal testosterone levels are a competition, those individuals high in testosterone but low in related to higher dominance rank in Old World monkeys such as status, experience emotional arousal and experience a decrease Rhesus Monkeys (Bernstein et al., 1983; Rose et al., 1975) and Crab- in performance on complex cognitive tasks (Josephs et al., 2006). eating Macaques (Clarke et al., 1986; Czoty et al., 2009), but also in Furthermore, there is evidence that collective efficacy is lower in our close living relatives, Chimpanzees (Muehlenbein et al., 2004; student workgroups in which basal testosterone levels of individu- Muller and Wrangham, 2004; Sobolewski et al., 2012). However, als do not match their status position (Zyphur et al., 2009). Perhaps among our other closest relative, the more egalitarian bonobos, these miss-matched individuals engage more in status striving there is no association between male dominance rank and basal rather than focussing on their work. testosterone levels (Sannen et al., 2004). On both theoretical and empirical grounds, as reviewed above, Yet, there are also good reasons to doubt whether testosterone we expected that higher testosterone levels were related to a and leadership are related in humans. First, many different styles of dominant leadership style but unrelated to other, more demo- leadership are not dominance-based (Bass and Bass, 2009), and it cratic and participative leadership styles. We also explored if may be that these are unrelated to high testosterone levels. Indeed, the testosterone-leadership style relationship was different for anthropological