Men's Testosterone Drops When Their Candidate Loses

The last time you watched your candidate lose an election, did it feel like you were losing the election yourself? Your body's biochemistry may have thought so. A study in science journal "PLoS One," from researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan, showed that following the announcement of the 2008 election results, male supporters of John McCain and other candidates who lost experienced a dramatic drop in testosterone. In contrast, men who supported Barack Obama maintained relatively stable levels of testosterone after learning he had won.

In addition to the lowered levels of testosterone, men whose candidates didn't win also reported feeling more "controlled," "submissive," and just all around "unpleasant" than men who supported Obama.

Scientists have previously documented testosterone-level drops following losses, but typically, the subjects were participants in the competitions themselves. There is one parallel: sports fans. A previous study showed that men who closely follow a sports team experience the same vicarious physiological response to a loss by their team.

Women did not show similar testosterone drops. Women's levels of testosterone remained constant regardless of whether their candidate won or lost. Researchers assure us that these differences "were not driven by variance in political zeal or values," as women surely wanted their candidates to win as much as men did, but because women's lower levels of testosterone are generally less prone to fluctuation.