Sex hormone effects on personality at puberty

Bibliographic Data

ID6203895
AuthorsJ Richard Udry (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Luther M Talbert
Year1988
Volume54
Issue2
Pages291-295
Publication date1988-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/0022-3514.54.2.291
OpenAlexW2163388729, W4252489957
LanguageEN
Citations received18

In this study we use serum steroid hormone assays and Adjective Check List responses from a repre-sentative sample of 102 male and 99 female adolescents to examine the relations between hormones, personality, and sexual behavior. We address two questions: (a) Does pubertal testosterone (T) cause sex dimorphism in personality? (b) Do pubertal hormones affect sexual behavior indirectly through effects on personality? Exploratory factor analysis of the Adjective Check List generated a factor common to male and female adolescents that correlated highly with T. However, male and female subjects did not differ in their mean level on this factor or in the correlation of this factor with T. In spite of the large sex difference in T, the girls were much more sensitive than the boys on the extracted factor to differences in T. We conclude that the answer to both questions is probably no. A biological foundation for personality differences has been deeply rooted in theories of human behavior since the time of the classical Greek philosophers. Since the discovery of hor-mones in the early years of the 20th century, their impact on the organization of behavior patterns has been a continuing sub-ject of research.

Adjective · Adjective check list · Affect (linguistics · Big Five personality traits · Developmental psychology · Hormone · Personality · Testosterone (patch · Cognitive Abilities and Testing · Education, Achievement, and Giftedness · Endocrinology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Hormonal and reproductive studies · Medicine · Menstrual Health and Disorders · Psychology · Sexual Differentiation and Disorders · Social Psychology

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