Testosterone Administration Induces a Red Shift in Democrats
38 comments
·October 18, 2025relium
331c8c71
Moreover, the republicans are reported as having lower T on average but the difference is not statistically significant.
It looks weird to me they don't report how age behaves across groups and don't correct for age in baseline comparisons.
readthenotes1
"but the difference is not statistically significant."
So,... Republicans are reported as having basically the same T?
Redster
I would be interested to see the flip side. For weakly affiliated Republicans, what is the effect, if any? Obviously, 136 is a very small sample size, so I won't be updating one way or another based on this.
drivebyhooting
The fine article covers that. No effect for strongly or weakly affiliated republicans.
Redster
I bounced right over it as I was skimming. Thanks!
antonymoose
I’m wholly ignorant here, what would make for a respectable sample size?
tharne
That's a tough question. There's no one "right" sample size. It depends on the size of the effect you're trying to measure, how much noise is in the data, whether or not you want to analyze subgroups within the data, and many other factors.
The sample size here, 136, is not bad at first glance, many studies get published with smaller ones. It's large enough for the purposes here, but you'd definitely want to replicate the experiment a few more times.
analog31
The rule of thumb is that signal-to-noise increases by the square root of the sample size. This is a brutal curve, and suggests that simply gathering more data is seldom practical.
Another rule that I use myself is, "multiply p by 10." In other words, a p-value of 0.05 is as good as a coin toss. This sounds outrageous, but seems consistent with reality.
amelius
Did they measure the IQ shift?
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1lbwkdh/...
lazystar
did some digging - that image is fake, but there is a study with that name. Doesn't contain that data though.
r9295
136 males? Fooled by randomness
tharne
The potential for trolling and general idiocy is high here, so I'll tread carefully. I think this is an uncomfortable truth that the Democratic party has yet to effectively internalize and address; and they will continue to struggle and frustrate themselves until they do. There is very little in current left-wing philosophy that provides any sort of meaningful place or role for masculinity as it is commonly understood. Then, when Democrats or other left wing political parties struggle to win over men, they resort to name calling and try to right off masculinity writ large, causally throwing around phrases like "toxic masculinity".
As much as it has gone out of fashion, the masculine and feminine are ever-present parts of the human psyche and human experience, which is why they can be found and understood across cultures, space, and time. Carl Jung and others who explore archetypes and symbols understood this well. You can't ignore a fundamental component of the human experience and expect your philosophy/worldview/politics succeed long term.
thrance
You can't cite Jung and be expected to be taken seriously in 2025. Type "Animus and Anima" in Google and see how crackpot this all sounds and looks.
Republicans are stuck with their backwards views, and they shut their mind completely to concepts like "patriarchy", which elicits violent, automatic reactions from them. I am yet to see a single guy from the right correctly define what "patriarchy" means to the left, and understand that the leftist projects by no means intends to harm men as a group.
To the contrary, liberating men from having to conform to a specific ideal is extremely freeing. So is not being berated for their height, lack of big muscles or whatever it is one "lacks" compared to the model man.
amelius
> I think this is an uncomfortable truth
What truth? A derivative tells you nothing about the absolute value of a function. Maybe the Democrats have a higher base T than Republicans, for all we know. And they just turn "red" when you overdose them on it, temporarily. You can probably find similar results with other substances.
postpawl
I think you're conflating the Democratic Party with "left-wing philosophy." Actual left-wing ideology (Marx, Lenin, the socialist tradition) focuses on material conditions for workers: who owns the means of production, labor power, class relations.
From that perspective, the problem isn't that Democrats have the wrong messaging about masculinity. It's that neither major US party offers politics centered on workers' material interests. Both parties abandoned class-based politics in favor of cultural appeals.
If you're a young man struggling economically, being told you have "privilege" feels disconnected from your reality of declining wages and diminished prospects. But the socialist response isn't "better messaging about masculinity," it's organizing workers to gain power over their economic conditions.
tremon
To have even more fun with this, republicans were the original "left wing" while the right wing was composed of monarchists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_wing#History
> Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right was between supporters of the French republic and those of the monarchy's privileges.
It's fun to consider those same dividing lines in the current US climate: once again, it's the right wing that tries very hard to establish an absolute ruler, while the left aims to maintain the current republic (or to salvage what's left of it).
Simulacra
I think the idea of masculinity versus femininity, versus nothing, should be removed from politics. No one should be demonizing any of it, some people are masculine, some people are feminine, some people are in between or nothing at all or neither. I don't like to see The political universe demonizing what is really innate human behavior.
neom
Yes indeed. When I was a young man I heard the now famous quote "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" by Pierre Trudeau. It was concerning the homosexuality debates in the politics of the 60s, but it always stuck with me as a generally good rule of thumb, do we really need to bring this stuff into politics? Who I pray to, who I sleep with, and what my T levels are, don't seem particularly germane. You put it eloquently, the political universe really does spend considerably too much energy demonizing what is really innate human behavior.
QuadmasterXLII
Joe Biden embodied many of the classic aspects of masculinity I find valuable- love for his family, moral fortitude (specifically, the ability to do the right thing instead of the thing-that-looks-right, see the Afghanistan pullout or his early support for gay marriage), as well as the classics like physical fitness, style, propriety and getting things done. The people running the algorithms hate this, and so you're never going to see evidence that he was loved for his masculinity online, but there's a reason he won his primaries. Unfortunately, Biden just got old as shit, and no one came up behind him- Gavin Newsom is what, 1 for six on the criteria I brought up?
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random9749832
>Carl Jung and others who explore archetypes and symbols understands this well.
Anyone who dates and has sex understands this. Masculine energy attracts feminine energy. You don't need a PHD in it.
pegasus
I guess even stags in rut "understand" this. But there are levels of understanding. Read something like The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann and you might agree it reaches a deeper level.
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random9749832
Sometimes I wonder if microplastics are a bug or a feature for companies selling us food that contain them. Same with a lot of other products that mess up your hormones.
TrackerFF
Wonder if increased testosterone made some of the subjects seek out hobbies/communities/etc. which in turn influenced them politically.
When I was in my 20s, I started really working out. This in turn opened my eyes to bodybuilding, fitness, and such. I became engaged in that, and the bodybuilding/fitness scene / community is (or at least used to be) very right leaning. Echo chamber of bro-science and populistic rightwing ideology.
Simulacra
A government study… Interesting. And only because it's a government study, had it been a private institution, I would've thrown this away. But it's interesting… That is the NIH.
watwut
I noticed republicans are more likely to act like a guys who took too much testosterone and now cant handle own feelings and aggression.
Or more realistically, lets wait whether it will be reproduced.
buzzerbetrayed
[flagged]
Note this quote from the article:
“Weakly affiliated Democrats had basal Testosterone levels 19% higher than strong Democrats and all Republicans.”
So it's not as simple as "more testosterone means more Republican".