Science Forums 2

[InfiniteNow]

Excellent point. Along similar lines, if your favorite sports team loses you're also likely to expereince a drop in testosterone levels.

So, for instance, your favorite soccer team makes it to the world cup. If they win, you experience a surge of testosterone. If they lose, you experience a drop.

Thinking about this testosterone link, I'm beginning to think you're quite right in that this is a hierarchy issue. Our favorite sports team can be equated with our "troop" or "pack." If our "troop" loses a fight to another troop, it's probably a more successful approach to be less aggressive toward that other troop in the future... and lower testosterone would encourage fewer aggressive exchanges with them.

I'm still contemplating how to tie this into the depression concept, but it sure makes sense that those organisms who avoided challenging a more dominant group over and over again probably did better evolutionarily than those organisms which continued challenging the more dominant pack over and over again... like a person who continues to touch the hot flame on their stove despite being burned repeatedly. The ones who stop touching the fire after the first burn tend to be better off than those who never learn that lesson and just keep burning themselves.