A Mental Winner Effect? Competitive Mental Imagery Impacts Self-Assurance but not Testosterone in Women
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A Mental Winner Effect? Competitive Mental Imagery Impacts Self-Assurance but not Testosterone in Women Jennifer M. Gray, et al. [full author details at the end of the article] Received: 20 May 2020 / Revised: 12 August 2020 / Accepted: 14 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Objective In humans and other species, winning or losing a competition elicits changes in testosterone that may influence engagement or performance in subsequent competitive events. Furthermore, anticipating or observing competition can change mood and testosterone, suggesting that cognitions surrounding competitive events may at least partially drive specific physiological and emotional responses. In the present study, we investigated the effect of imagined competition on mood and testosterone in women. Methods Participants (62 women) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (high-investment win, high-investment loss, low-investment win, low-investment loss) and were asked to imagine and write about experiencing both the competition and its outcome. Salivary testosterone levels and self-reported mood were assessed before and after the competitive cognition task. Results Although imagining a competitive scenario was not salient enough to elicit significant changes in testosterone, imagining a high-investment competition and imagining a win each significantly increased feelings of self-assurance. Participants were more likely to write about their motivation to compete again when imagining a loss than when imagining a win, but testosterone did not predict including content about competing again. Conclusions Visualizing oneself winning a contest of personal importance increased feelings of self-assurance in the absence of a testosterone response in women. Future research is needed to determine how the combination of positive mental imagery and physical competition could influence mood and testosterone, and whether selfassurance induced by mental imagery can increase the chance of future victories. Keywords Competition . Mental imagery . Mood . Testosterone . Women
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-02000149-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology
Competition, in which two or more groups or individuals partake in a social contest over a valued resource, has profound psychosocial and physiological impacts (Casto and Edwards 2016). Particularly, a phenomenon known as the “winner effect” demonstrates that individuals partaking in a competition who experience a victory are more likely to win in subsequent competitions (Hsu and Wolf 1999; Oliveira 2009). Research across species has identified testosterone as a mediator of the winner effect: winning a contest increases testosterone, and this testosterone surge increases the likelihood of future victories (Casto and Edwards 2016; Gleason et al. 2009; Oliveira 2009). The current study investigates whether, in humans, mental imagery
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