Trait anxiety moderates the association between estradiol and dominance in women - ScienceDirect Skip to main contentSkip to article - Purchase PDF - Access through your organization Search ScienceDirect ## Physiology & Behavior Volume 143, 1 May 2015, Pages 97-103 # Trait anxiety moderates the association between estradiol and dominance in women Anna Ziomkiewicz a b, Szymon Wichary c, Aleksandra Gomula a, Boguslaw Pawlowski d Show more Add to Mendeley https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.02.045 Get rights and content ## Highlights • Dominance is negatively related to estradiol and estradiol to testosterone ratio • Trait anxiety moderates the association between dominance and estradiol levels • Testosterone levels do not predict dominance in reproductive age women • Maintaining high dominance might be associated with significant costs to reproduction ## Introduction Accumulating evidence suggests that gonadal sex hormones are important modulators of social behavior in animals and humans. Testosterone levels are associated with social status, parenting behavior, aggression, risk taking, competition and social dominance [1]. Estradiol is similarly linked to beh

# High estradiol and low progesterone are associated with high assertiveness in women Psychoneuroendocrinology. Published: 2016-10-19. 54 citations. ## Authors - Khandis R. Blake (UNSW Sydney): h-index 25; 2,001 citations; corresponding author - Brock Bastian (The University of Melbourne): h-index 54; 13,538 citations - Siobhan O’Dean (UNSW Sydney): h-index 15; 958 citations - Thomas F. Denson (UNSW Sydney): h-index 45; 7,804 citations ## Topics - Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior - Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation - Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment --- # Running head: BLAKE ET AL. ESTRADIOL AND PROGESTERONE PREDICT ASSERTIVENESS 1 ## Abstract Sexual selection theory posits that women are more selective than men are when choosing a mate. This evolutionary theory suggests that "choosiness" increases during the fertile window because the costs and benefits of mate selection are highest when women are likely to conceive. Little research has directly investigated reproductive correlates of choice assertion. To address this gap, in the present research we investigated whether fertility, estradiol, and progesterone influenced general assertiveness in w

daptive strategies Genetic integration among personality traits with concordant fitness benefits, e.g., Duckworth and Kruuk (2009) The mind is organized into adaptive modules Pattern of genetic covariance between traits within the same posited modules and weak or limited genetic covariance between traits within different posited modules, e.g., Drake and Klingenberg (2010) Emotion G has a specific function, H Positive covariance between performance of the posited function and fitness, e.g., Arnold (1983) Person perception is an adaptation that facilitates mate choice Covariance between person perception traits and mate choice AND covariance between mate choice and fitness outcomes, e.g., Brooks and Endler (2001) Open in a new tab Empirical work investigating some of these examples in non-human taxa is provided. 1.2. The estrogen-mediated suite of traits Sex hormones are privileged with regard to selection because they regulate reproductive traits and thus generate strong potential for correlational selection among other traits in their suite ( McGlothlin and Ketterson, 2008 ). In humans, sex hormones are well-studied for their effects on the development of sexual characteristics. Here, we focus on estrogen, but the principles we elucidate should be considered for other sex hormones. Estrogen signaling, in addition to regulating growth, development, and physiology of female reproduction, is crucial for the timing of life history transitions (e.g., menarche and menopause), metabolism, immune function, adipogenesis, skeletal modeling, cardiovascular system functioning, and mood regulation ( Dluzen, 2005 ; Kovats, 2015 ). Estrogen may also regulate mate preference ( Gangestad and Thornhill, 2008 ; Jünger et al., 2018 ). Additionally, estrogen is a major factor in carcinogenesis, especially in cancers of the breast and female reproductive tract ( Grady et al., 1995 ; Clemons and Goss, 2001 ; Kaaks et al., 2002 ; Rossouw et al., 2002 ; Yager and Davidson, 2006 ; Reid et al