More on Testosterone Levels: Driving a Porsche vs. Toyota Camry

A couple weeks back, I put up a post on Testosterone Levels, Top Dogs,and Collective Confidence, which described a study showing that groups enjoyed more collective confidence when the people with higher levels where at the top of the pecking order and those with lower levels are at the bottom (compared to "mismatched groups" where the top dogs had low levels and the underlings had high levels).  There were some extremely thoughtful comments on that post, including a comment that "T" levels, as researchers call them, are heavily influenced by situational factors. Well, to that point, it turns out that -- as I learned from the always useful BPS Research Digest --  that this article was one of a set published in a special issue of Organizational Behavior and Decision Processes on "The Biological Basis of Business." I read through the table of contents for the issue, and came upon a study that just cracked me up on the effects of driving a Porsche vs. a Camry.

It is called "The Effects of Conspicuous Consumption on Men's Testosterone Levels" and was conducted by Gad Saad and John Vongas of Concordia University.  Here is roughly what they did (I am focusing on the first of the two studies in the article). They had 39 young heterosexual men drive both "a 2006 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet estimated to be worth over $150,000" and a "a dilapidated 1990 Toyota Camry wagon having over 186,000 miles,"  each for an hour,split evenly between city and and highway driving.  They randomly assigned subjects to driving either the Porsche or Camry first.  They took a total of six  "T" samples from each young man at various stages on the process. Most crucial for our purposes are the changes in "T" that occurred after driving the Porsche vs. the Camry, but also relevant are the two "baseline" samples taken before and after the experience.

The effect was that driving the Camry did not seem to lead in a significant change in T levels, but -- no doubt to the delight of many people and perhaps the disgust of many others -- the young guys who drove the Porsche experienced significant and substantial increases in T levels after driving the Porsche (in the final sample of 31 guys, 8 were excluded from the day analysis because their samples were tainted by excessive excessive blood in their mouths). 

Here is the key table:

I am not sure if these results are completely obvious and trivial or completely shocking and crucial.  I always had a sneaking suspicion that the "manly" feeling that comes from driving a sports car was nonsense promoted by car companies. But I guess it may have some truth.  Also, I want to commend the researchers for demonstrating a lot of creativity and for -- despite the straight and serious academic writing -- producing one of the most entertaining academic studies I have read in a long time. 

P.S. Here is the citation: G. Saad, J.G. Vongas / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 110 (2009) 80–92

Comments

[Redditch tyres]

I think the reason is because of excitement level.I mean Porsche cars are one of the most expensive and luxurious car in auto industry.Not all can have it because of the price digits so people are more excited to drive them.No offense with the Camry because i have a Camry car,it's reliable and perfect for my everyday used.A lot can afford them because it has a price that's enough.

[Annuity Rates]

Would this explain why people who drive these performance cars tend to have more accidents?

[Porsche 911]

This is certainly not surprising. Having driven both sports cars and family sedans or even mini vans on the same day, I can attest to the different "feeling" you get from the sports car. Love it or hate it, it's definitely there.

If this somehow gets me closer to justifying it with my wife, I'll be happy!

[speeding solicitor]

interesting that driving downtown in a sedan actually reduces testosterone- is it really that soul destroying?

[Marc Kincade]

Hi-tech gadgetry!The vast number of ways to incorporate todays innovative devices for automobiles is astounding. Thanks for your insight into this growing field. Keep up the good work, Marc

[hapizi84]

What can i see from that graph,driving a Porsche make a interesting effect especially at highway.

[david karapetyan]

Academic study? Are you joking? What is academic about letting a bunch of guys drive cars and then measuring their T levels. It would have been a lot more "academic" if these "researchers" measured some other variables to see if certain things went down when T levels went up.

[Jim]

Oddly, I am a driver who went from a 944 Turbo Porsche, to a Jag XJS, to a 1999 Camry with 180,000 miles, which I now drive. One day, I woke up and asked myself, "Why do I need to drive a car to makes a statement?" and realized I didn't. Admittedly, it took some adjusting to accept that I was defining myself by what I drove instead of who I was as a husband, father, son, brother, and neighbor. Now the Camry sits in my office parking lot most of the day, gets me about when I need to see clients throughout the day, and suits my one mile commute home very nicely.

[joker]

"...because their samples were tainted by excessive excessive blood in their mouths)."

double excessive there, and what the heck is excessive blood in their mouths??? tia

[tigerfish]

I thought Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear) should have done the test on Porsche vs. Toyota Camry.

[dr2chase]

So what we think of as compensation, is really self-medication? "I'd like a prescription for a Porsche, please".

[Randy]

Did they describe the physical characteristics of the techs administering the periodic tests along the road? Could skew the data, you know!

"Do not confuse correlation with causality - ever!" (NNTaleb quote of someone whose name I forgot while looking at the technician).

[sk]

So this explains the midlife crisis sports car. At a time when a man is starting to experience the physical effects of producing less testosterone, the sports car is a non-pharmeceutical way to mitigate the loss.

[John Jenkins]

The most interesting thing I see in the graph is the effect of highway driving versus city driving.

It would be interesting to see whether this data held up across genders and whether we could examine other factors that were correlated (e.g., instances of road rage on highways versus city streets).

From these data, one would hypothesize that road rage incidents would be overrepresented on highways than what would be predicted from straight mileage data, iff road rage is correlated with T levels.