Baby cries and nurturance affect testosterone in men Sari M. van Anders a, b, ⁎, Richard M. Tolman c , Brenda L. Volling d a Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA b Department of Women's Studies, Program in Neuroscience, University of Michigan, 204 South State Street, Ann Arbor MI 48109, USA c School of Social Work, University of Michigan, 1080 South University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA d Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA abstract article info Article history: Received 18 August 2011 Revised 23 September 2011 Accepted 24 September 2011 Available online xxxx Keywords: Androgen Testosterone Parental behavior Infant Nurturance Cries Paternal care Testosterone (T) is generally theorized within a trade-off framework that contrasts parenting and low T with competitive challenges and high T. Paradoxically, baby cues increase T, prompting questions of whether T or its behavioral expression has been mischaracterized. We tested 55 men using a novel interactive infant doll para- digm, and results supported our hypotheses: We showed for the first time that baby cries do decrease T in men, but only when coupled with nurturant responses. In contrast, baby cries uncoupled from nurturant re- sponses increased T. These findings highlight the need to partition infant cues and interactions into nurturant ver- sus competitive-related contexts to more accurately conceptualize T, as per the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds. This experiment also supports the utility of this paradigm for studying effects of infant interactions on hor- monal responses, which may provide critical insights into ameliorating the darker sides of caregiving (e.g. anger, frustration, violence) and enhancing the positive sides (e.g. intimacy, nurturance, reward). © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction Testosterone's association with social behaviors is generally under- stood as a trade-off between high T and competitive challenges versus low T and parenting. Evidence from a variety of species supports this distinction (Archer, 2006; Hirschenhauser and Oliveira, 2006; Ketterson and Nolan, 1992; McGlothlin et al., 2010; van Anders and Watson, 2006), which is often framed via the ‘Challenge Hypothesis’ (Wingfield et al., 1990). This trade-off is apparent over the lifespan, and parturition is associated with transient decreases in T for mammalian fathers (Nunes et al., 2000; Wynne-Edwards, 2001). Cross-sectional data from humans also suggest that mothers and fathers have lower T than their nonparent counterparts (Gray and Campbell, 2009; Kuzawa et al., 2009; Kuzawa et al., 2010) though only when they are involved in care- giving (Muller et al., 2009). Relatedly, two of the clearest predictions for T and social behaviors from the Challenge Hypothesis are that T should inhibit parenting, and infant cues should decrease T; this clarity is belied by contradictory data, as evidence shows that many infant cues and contexts actually increase T. Studies on hormonal responses to baby cues in men find that baby cries increase T (Fleming et al., 2002; Storey et al., 2000), rather than de- crease T in accordance with the low T/parenting link. Moreover, acute doses of exogenous T enhance neural responsivity to baby cries in women (Bos et al., 2010), rather than the suppressive effects that theory would predict. Yet, male trait T shows the expected associations such that lower baseline T is related to higher paternal empathy (Fleming et al., 2002). Similarly showing expected effects, experimental studies demonstrate that baby odor decreases T in marmoset fathers (Ziegler et al., 2011), more time with infants is associated with lower T in fathers (Storey et al., 2011), and T administration decreases psychological mea- sures critical to empathy (Hermans et al., 2006). Why, then, does T responsivity to baby cues in humans diverge from longstanding under- standings of T ? One difficulty with interpreting research on T responses to baby cues is that the ‘parental/infant’ category is assumed to be phenome- nologically whole. That is, all behavioral contexts related to infants or parenting are subsumed into one low-T category, regardless of their motivation or function. Activities as varied as breastfeeding, infant protection or defense, warm hugs, and hearing cries are categorized under the infant/parent umbrella. Yet infant defense clearly has a very different motivation than hugs, i.e. responding to a threat versus exhibiting nurturance, and a very different form in terms of observ- able behavior. Indeed, infant defense may be more akin to a challenge situation than one involving nurturance. According to the Steroid/- Peptide Theory of Social Bonds, only those infant/parent contexts that involve nurturance will decrease T; those that involve competi- tions (real or imagined) will increase T (van Anders et al., 2011). In- fant defense is typically studied in non-humans, and evidence from cichlid fish does show that it increases T (Desjardins et al., 2008). Might infant cries increase T for the same reason? Hormones and Behavior xxx (2011) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: + 1 734 763 7480. E-mail address: smva@umich.edu (S.M. van Anders). YHBEH-03269; No. of pages: 6; 4C: 0018-506X/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2011.09.012 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Hormones and Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/yhbeh Please cite this article as: van Anders, S.M., et al., Baby cries and nurturance affect testosterone in men, Horm. Behav. (2011), doi:10.1016/ j.yhbeh.2011.09.012