¡Descarga Research Notebook y más Apuntes en PDF de Endocrinología solo en Docsity!
RESEARCH NOTEBOOK
BEHAVIORAL ENDOCRINOLOGY
A study has been presented to you as if you were an experimental subject. You have been able to get the necessary knowledge about the methods used and can guess which are the objectives and hypotheses that have guided the study.
That is precisely what you have to express now: your opinion. You should just reflect on the information that you have been able to collect. On this basis and using your theoretical and methodological knowledge, you must answer the following questions.
The answers are not necessarily right or wrong. The professors of Behavioral Endocrinology are interested in your own personal elaboration of the answers and on the rationale you have relied on to produce them.
In order to reach a good grade in this task, it is very important that you express your ideas with your own words and make clear which are the reasons to answer in that manner.
This is a team task that must be completed by a maximum of two students per team and uploaded by just one of them.
Behavioral Endocrinology questions
1. Which ones do you reckon are the objectives of the study?
Objective 1 To evaluate the differences between women in fertile phase and those who are not in reference to their preferences of men facial traits more or less masculinized.
Objective 2 To evaluate the differences between the same two groups in respect to “disgust attitudes”.
Objective 3 To study the existen relationship between two personality traits: the openness (or receptiveness) in women and their preference in reference to facial traits (more or less masculinized)
2. Which are the main hypotheses?
Hypothesis 1 Women in the fertile phase will prefere pictures of men with more masculine facial features.
Hypothesis 2 Women in the not fertile phase will score high in the disgust scale.
Hypothesis 3 Women that score low in openness will prefer men with more masculine facial features.
3. Is the study focused on the effects of hormones on behavior or on the effects of
behavior on hormones? Why?
Analysis level Why?
Adaptive function We think the study is focused on adaptive function of hormones on behaviour. Specially, regarding women, it is focused on the differential effect that hormones exert depending on the phase they are undergoing. This way, it seeks to figure out some adaptatives functions of the hormonal functioning of fertile women, that will help them getting pregnant.
4. In which level/s of analysis does the study focus? Why?
Hormones on behavior: Why? Behavior on hormones: Why?
We consider that the study focuses on the effects of hormones on behavior because one of the data it take into account was the time when you had the period, and there were questions about the regularity of menstrual cycle, etc. Therefore, taking into account that hormone levels fluctuate notably throughout the cycle, and that these fluctuations affect both aspects psychological -like the character and the taking of decisions- as physiological, we consider that it is focused on the study of how the answers vary around the scale of disgust and the preference for more or less masculine feature, depending on the hormonal moment in which the subject is.
We consider that the study hasn’t been realized from this perspective because the methodology that has been used should have been totally different. In order to measure the effect of behavior on hormones we should firstly evaluate the cortisol levels of the subject by a blood or urine analysis in the right conditions. Then, we should simulate a stress situation and test these levels a second time. What is expected it that cortisol levels have increased, as it is a hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in stress conditions.
5. Hormone concentrations have not been measured in this study. If you could do
that, which hormones would you select? Please, explain your motives for selecting
every hormone you have mentioned.
Anthony C. Little, Tamsin K. Saxton, S. Craig Roberts, Benedict C. Jones, Lisa M. DeBruine, Jovana Vukovic, David I. Perrett, David R. Feinberg, Todd Chenore. (2010, 07)
Women's preferences for masculinity in male faces are highest during reproductive age range and lower around puberty and post-menopause
Psychoneuroendocrinology
9. After having statistically analyzed the data, you have obtained the following results.
Please, select only two of the results, and then interpret and discuss them. A brief
discussion that outlines the main ideas will be enough.
Women’s study
- Result 1. The scores at the Three-Domain Disgust Scale are significantly different (t 154 =5.21; p<0.01) between fertile and non-fertile women.
- Result 2. Reaction times at the Dot-Probe Task of fertile and non-fertile women are not significantly different. (t 154 =1.03; p<0.01)
- Result 3. The personality trait Openness is negatively and significantly correlated (r=-.48; p<0.01) with a preference for more masculinized faces in the select-a-face task.
Result 1: The results show that significant differences exist between fertile and non fertile women, based on the disgust scale. We the date we have, we cannot determine which women, the fertile or the non fertile, are the ones that score higher in disgust. That’s why, this results would confirm - or could reject - hypothesis 2. No fertile women scale higher in the scale.
Result 3: These results could mean that the personality trait “Openness” is negatively correlated with a more masculinized face traits preference. We conclude this because the most receptive and open women are influenced by high levels of feminine hormones, this could cause them to have more sympathy for faces of softer features, as opposed to more masculinized faces, that could attract more to women with low levels of feminine hormones. The idea that depending on the hormone levels attracts you one type of face or another, and, in addition, modifies personality traits, only supports the importance that hormones have in the lives of women in this case and of people in general.
