Mouthbreath
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Guns, testosterone, and aggression: an experimental test of a mediational hypothesis - PubMed
We tested whether interacting with a gun increased testosterone levels and later aggressive behavior. Thirty male college students provided a saliva sample (for testosterone assay), interacted with either a gun or a children's toy for 15 min, and then provided another saliva sample. Next...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The participants (18-22yo men) were told that they'd be taking part in a study of the effect of attention to detail on taste sensitivity. A saliva sample for testosterone testing was collected. Then each man was led into a room where he sat at a table with an object on it. The man had to take apart the object and put it back together according to instructions.
For half the men, the object was a pellet gun that mimicked a Desert Eagle automatic handgun.
The other half of the men worked with a child's game called Mouse Trap.
Fifteen minutes later, the men gave another saliva sample. Then they were asked to taste a lidded 3-ounce cup of water with a drop of Frank's Red Hot Sauce in it.
Finally, the men were given a 3-ounce cup of water and a bottle of the hot sauce. They were told the water would be given to the next man in the study, and that they could — anonymously — put as much hot sauce in the water as they liked.
This hot-sauce trick has been used before. The more aggressive a man is feeling, the more hot sauce he tends to put in the next guy's drink.
Sure enough, testosterone went up about 100 times more in the men who handled the gun than in the men who handled the children's toy. And the gun handlers put three times more hot sauce in the water — on average, about a half ounce — than the toy handlers. The more a man's testosterone went up after gun handling, the more hot sauce he put in the water.
Testosterone levels went from 222.59 pg/ml to 290 pg/ml in the group that interacted with the fake desert eagle.
