Testosterone’s negative relationship with empathic accuracy and perceived leadership ability.

Two studies examine the relationship between naturally occurring levels of circulating testosterone and empathic accuracy. In Study 1, the authors find that higher endogenous levels of testosterone are negatively related to the accuracy with which people infer the thoughts and feelings of others. In Study 2, the authors use 360 data collected in the field to show that individuals with higher levels of endogenous testosterone are evaluated by their real-world professional colleagues as functioning with lower lev-els of empathic accuracy. Furthermore, the authors report evidence that this negative relationship between testosterone and perceived empathic accuracy has downstream consequences for perceptions of one’s leadership skills and abilities.