Scientists have been testing how men's and women's brains react when they're given the other sex's hormones. Researchers found that when men were given a single high dose of oxytocin (a hormone that females make more of), it increased their ability to resonate with other people's feelings. So when the men looked at photos of faces displaying subtle emotional cues, they read them more accurately. The scientists concluded that the men became temporarily more empathetic. In a separate study, researchers gave women a single high dose of testosterone and found that it temporarily made them more mentally focused.
What Danielle criticized as Neil's "unsupportive, unemotional robotic mode" was actually the result of his finely tuned TPJ, enhanced by his high testosterone. Because this state of mind is the male brain's daily reality, it's hard for men to believe that women don't see the world the same way as they do. But we don't.
Danielle turned to Neil and, only half jokingly, said, "Well, I wouldn't mind using my TPJ more as long as it doesn't give me a male ego!"
THE MALE EGO
Joe, a forty-five-year-old manager at a local car dealership, called me in great distress, saying his wife, Maria, my former patient, was going to leave him if he didn't come see me about his anger. He explained that she was furious with him for getting into a shouting match with a cab driver. "I'm not saying I'm proud of getting into it with him," he told me, "but I don't think it was such a big deal. The guy asked for it."
And for Joe, it wasn't a big deal. A man's brain area for suppressing anger, the septum, is smaller than it is in the female brain, so expressing anger is a more common response for men than it is for women. The anger-aggression circuits in the male brain are formed before he's born and get behaviorally reinforced during boyhood and hormonally reinforced during the teen years. And by adulthood, using these hormonally influenced circuits for social risk-taking and aggression have become a familiar part of his life. Men in their forties, like Joe, still have a lot of testosterone and vasopressin fueling their brain circuits, often giving them a hair trigger for anger. Studies have found that though men and women report that they feel anger for an equal number of minutes per day, men get physically aggressive twenty times more often than women do.
I'd barely greeted Joe and Maria in the waiting room when he affably launched into an explanation: "I want you to know that I've been working hard to keep my cool and be more sensitive to Maria, but sometimes I slip up."
Maria said, "That was more than a slip! I thought any second they'd start punching each other. Tell me, what would make a forty-five-year-old man act like that?"
I looked at Joe and asked, "Well, what did happen?"
He folded his arms across his chest as he said, "It was nothing. She just gets upset." But if we could have watched Joe's brain circuits while they were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic behind the cab that was braking at every green light, we'd have seen Joe's anger-aggression circuits responding to his rising hormonal tide. As his frustration grew, we'd see his testosterone and stress hormone, cortisol, activating his amygdala and firing up his fighting circuits. When Joe flashed his lights at the taxi to speed up and the driver hit his brakes instead, we'd have seen Joe's motor cortex activate the muscles in his hands and arms as he banged on the steering wheel and blasted the horn. When the cab driver retaliated by slowing down more and braking erratically, we'd have seen Joe's brain being flooded with a mixture of adrenaline, cortisol, and testosterone. We'd have seen his "good judgment" circuits, the frontal lobes, go dark and offline as his right foot pressed down on the gas pedal to bumper-tap the cab--hard enough to splash Maria's coffee all over her dress.
As the cabbie slammed on his brakes and jumped out of his cab, we'd have seen Joe laser-focusing every cell in his brain and body for a fight. When Maria yelled, "Stop, Joe! What if he has a gun?" Joe's auditory system barely heard her. He'd already thrust open his door and was hurling his bulky frame out of the car.
Now, sitting in front of me, Joe looked as though he'd been sent to the principal's office for fighting on the playground. He knew he was in serious trouble with Maria, but he still thought she was overreacting. As for Maria, the encounter with the cab driver would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Looking down, she shook her head and said to me, "Someday his stupid male ego is going to get him killed."
Most men aren't proud of their knee-jerk reaction to being challenged, but as Joe put it, "It's just a guy thing." I explained that Joe's male brain biologically saw the cab driver's actions as a challenge to his territory and dominance, and his brain responded with a series of chemical changes prompting his aggressive behavior. Looking at Maria, I said, "This brain biology doesn't give men permission to be uncivilized, but it does provide insight into why they defend their manhood so vigorously."
Addressing both of them, I said, "Basically, the hormone cocktail in the male brain is the underpinning of Joe's anger and aggression."
Joe unfolded his arms and leaned forward, saying, "I guess this hormone cocktail does get me in trouble, at least with Maria."
Smugly, I thought to myself, "We've made some good progress in our very first session." Boy, was I wrong.
AUTOCATALYTIC ANGER
Joe and Maria had been married twenty-two years, and from Joe's perspective, they had had a good marriage. Up until now, when she threatened divorce, he was on top of the world. They had a nice house, and even during the latest recession, he was the biggest earner at the dealership where he worked.
Although Maria was proud of Joe's success at work, she didn't agree with his opinion of their marriage. She had a mental tally sheet for every fight they'd ever had. Studies have found that men and women remember facts equally well, but women remember the details of emotional events better and longer. The brain has two independent memory systems. One is memory for unemotional objects or events, and the other is for memory enhanced by emotion. In emotional situations these two systems interact in important ways. Essentially, men remember facts and figures, but women record not only the facts, but also every detail of the emotion that they're feeling. So when Maria recalled a fight with Joe, she'd not only remember the facts, but she'd reexperience her sadness, anger, and fear all over again.
She said, "It doesn't take much to set him off. I walk around on eggshells waiting for him to blow. And then he follows me around the house from room to room shouting at me and getting more worked up."
Maria was describing a behavior that scientists call autocatalytic, or self-reinforcing, anger. Once some men's anger ignites, it's hard to stop. Their anger gets fueled by testosterone, vasopressin, and cortisol. These hormones reduce a man's physical fear of the opponent and activate his territorial fight reaction. When Maria yells back at Joe, his brain knows she isn't a real threat to him, so her anger just gets him more fired up. His anger is feeding on her anger and then back on his own. Scientists have found that when anger reaches the boiling point in some men, under conditions of high testosterone, it can produce pleasure, egging them on and making their anger harder to control. Joe couldn't admit it to me, because he almost didn't know it himself, but part of his brain was enjoying being angry and seeing her angry. He was getting a high from his anger.
This high was what Joe had been using for decades to win competitions. He knew from playing high-school football that getting angry got him fired up. And he now used that energy to help him win the sales contests at work. When men like Joe are in a competitive mood or looking for a fight, seeing their opponent get angry creates a strange sort of excitement. The intelligent part of the brain, our cortex, has learned to harness deep, primitive emotions--like anger--to our advantage.
According to studies, people prefer to feel emotions that are potentially useful, even if those feelings are unpleasant. Researchers showed that even though anger can cause flawed thinking by reducing the perceptions of risk and triggering aggression, anger can sometimes make us think more clearly. They concluded that anger prompts more careful and rational analysis of another
person's reasoning, so in some instances, anger can make people more rational, not less. But while Joe's anger was paying off at work, Maria made it clear that it wasn't scoring any points at home.
She quietly said, "Joe, when you get mad, it always gets worse, and it really, really scares me." At this Joe whistled through his teeth and raised his eyebrows. "But you know I'd never hurt you," he said, looking stricken. In cultures all over the world, men like Joe consider it perfectly acceptable to express their anger, especially when they feel they're being challenged. So men are often surprised to hear that their wives and children are actually afraid of them. Researchers have also found that high-testosterone men, like Joe, more than low-testosterone men, have a need to dominate others, and so they react more dramatically to being challenged. And this happens in the animal kingdom too. Studies in primates show that dominant males whose status is consistently challenged maintain higher levels of testosterone and are more aggressive than subordinate males. The higher the testosterone, the more invigorated and battle-ready the male brain feels.
When Maria glared at Joe or shouted back at him, she was unknowingly challenging his dominance, thus increasing his testosterone. She was causing the flames of Joe's anger to flare up, escalating and prolonging the fight.
"Okay, if that's how it works, I'll agree to stop glaring back," Maria said. "But he has to promise to walk away before he gets so mad that he can't shut up."
I looked questioningly at Joe, and he nodded. "All right. I'll try," he said. "But I just don't get why she's so upset about this all of a sudden. I've been like this my whole life!"
As it turned out, when Maria and Joe first started dating, she was flattered by his jealous, intense way of letting her know she was the one. She said she liked the way he aggressively stared down other guys he caught checking her out. In those days, Joe's tough-guy attitude made him more attractive to her.
Research shows that angry men get noticed more--not only by other men but also by women. Ironically, it was the same high-testosterone personality traits that had initially attracted Maria to Joe that were now driving them apart.
"But it isn't hopeless," I said. "The good news is that research shows that couples who argue have a better chance of staying together. The fighting you've been doing, while damaging in its own way, gives your marriage a better chance of survival than if you suppressed your anger altogether." It was clear to me that Joe and Maria still loved each other. I just needed to help them work on expressing their anger in less destructive ways. But Joe would still need his aggression to motivate him and maintain his place in the pecking order at work, as my patient Neil was finding out firsthand.
THE COMFORT OF STABLE HIERARCHY
The voice mail I received from Danielle had been left in my urgent box. She said, "Neil hasn't slept in days and I'm worried about him. Things at work are pretty bad right now."
As I soon found out, when the president of Neil's architecture firm announced that he was retiring, Neil felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. He and his boss had always worked well together, and Neil would not only miss their camaraderie, but also his backing in these fragile economic times. Even though Neil got along with Ben--the VP who would soon be the new president--he hadn't worked on many projects with him and didn't know him well. Until now, Neil's position had always seemed secure. But now there was an atmosphere of uncertainty as the pecking order was about to change. And Neil wasn't sure that the changes would be for the better.
At home, Neil, who typically demeanor, had morphed into a grouch. Lately, even when Danielle said something that would normally make him laugh, he'd scowl. This wasn't the Neil she knew. When he started tossing and turning all night, she begged him to come see me. When he came in, he said, "I have to keep as much control at work as I can, so I applied for the VP opening." But Neil wasn't the only applicant. Four of the other senior architects in the firm applied too--including Neil's biggest adversary, George.
had a rock-steady
touchy and irritable Research has found that when men are in a stable hierarchy, their testosterone and cortisol are lower than when they're not, reducing their tendency toward anger and aggression. A male's tendency to violence can be either dialed up or dialed down by social conditions.
Scientists have found that a stable social hierarchy and a stable marriage are two factors that dial it down. At least Neil has the stable marriage part , I thought. But when the pecking order is thrown into question, as at Neil's firm, even calm men start pumping out more testosterone, cortisol, and vasopressin, preparing them for turf wars.
Neil said, "I was doing okay until I found out George was going after the VP promotion too. That's when I stopped sleeping."
If we could take a look inside Neil's brain as he reacted to this territorial challenge, we'd see bursts of testosterone, cortisol, and vasopressin flooding his circuits. As he tossed and turned in bed while thinking about how awful it would be if George became his superior, we'd see Neil's territorial fear circuits activating in his hypothalamus and amygdala. As he pounded his pillow into the right shape for the tenth time that night, his mind would be buzzing with ideas--all directed at beating George out of the job. These thoughts would be stimulating, instead of relaxing, the "sleep cells" in his suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN. Now Neil's eyes were wide open as he ruminated about the hierarchy at work.
Research shows that social hierarchies guide behavior in many species, including humans. The mental machinery for jockeying for position is wired into the male brain. Fierce male-male competition is found in animals as diverse as lizards, leopards, and elephants and it's ubiquitous in higher primates. Like human males, chimps will bluff, scheme, and even murder to gain or maintain rank. And like human males, they respond biologically to victories and setbacks. The testosterone that runs their competitive circuits ramps up as they anticipate a confrontation. Neil's brain was instinctively preparing him to do battle.
Evolutionary biologists suggest that behaviors like bluffing, posturing, and fighting have evolved to protect males, especially from opponents within their own species. Instinctive male-male competition and hierarchical fighting is driven by both hormones and brain circuits. A special hypothalamus, the dorsal DPN, has been discovered, in rats, to contain circuitry for this instinctive one-upmanship. In humans, this one-upmanship and drive for status-seeking is found in men worldwide; it's not just a habit or a cultural tradition but more like a design feature of the male brain. area in the male brain's
premammillary nucleus, or Neil's drive to maintain and gain status was occupying his every waking--and sleeping--moment. Danielle said she'd never seen Neil this sullen and angry. That's not surprising, for his testosterone was surging. And even if he wouldn't admit it, his brain knew that the confrontation would require more anger and aggression than he was accustomed to. Under normal circumstances, Neil preferred to be calm and relaxed, but he was willing to endure some nasty emotions if that's what it took to win the job he knew should be his.
The day of his first interview, Neil wasn't well rested, but he was determined to fake it. He put on a crisp white shirt and his red power-tie; he must look confident and in charge. When I saw him early that morning he looked sharp, and his jaw was firmly set. Testosterone clearly had activated his brain circuits and his manly facial muscles for dominance and aggression. Neil was in fight mode, and as far as his brain was concerned, this was war.
If we could peek back into Neil's brain in this atmosphere of unstable hierarchy, we'd see what was causing his emotional roller-coaster ride. When he thought his prospects for VP looked promising, we'd see his brain area for anticipating rewards activating, and he'd feel good. But when he thought George might get the promotion, we'd see his territoriality circuits in the DPN activating, and he'd feel haunted by the threat of losing face and forfeiting his place in the hierarchy.
The competition at work had become vicious, and Neil was obsessed with defending his territory. As he sat down in my offic
e, he said, "The highlight this week was when my new boss, Ben, finally got fed up with George. He usually laughs at George's sarcastic comments. But yesterday George interrupted him in a meeting and Ben shot him a look that could kill. It was awesome." I was glad to see Neil in a more confident mood. As he left, he said, "My final interview for VP is next week. Wish me luck!"
It was several long weeks before Neil was finally offered the VP position, and when it happened Danielle and I both breathed a sigh of relief. But no one was more relieved than Neil. He could finally get some sleep. For Neil, the fight wasn't just about being the new VP; it was about beating the usurper, George, and defending his place in the hierarchy. By re-establishing a stable pecking order with himself at the top, Neil had achieved another milestone in manhood and set himself up for decades of continued career success.
SEVEN
The Mature Male Brain
JOHN, A fifty-eight-year-old business consultant, looked younger and more fit than when I'd seen him five years earlier. At that time, he'd been going through a difficult divorce, and the stressful side effects had been written all over him. Now he not only seemed more relaxed, but he exuded the self-assurance of a man who had finally come into his own--and knew it.
What was different about John at age fifty-eight? Nothing and everything. He had the same personality and brain circuits he had in his thirties. But now his highly responsive Maserati male brain--built for pursuit, competition, and aggression--was starting to run a different fuel mixture, more suited to a luxury sedan. And he was starting to enjoy his slightly slower pace. This difference is a normal part of the mature male brain, initiated by a shifting ratio of hormones. And as his hormones shifted, so would his reality.