The Relationships Of Testosterone Level And Testosterone Metabolic Genes With Empathic Dispositions And Responses

Empathy refers to the abilities to understand and share other's inner feelings and make responses to others.Empathy promotes prosocial behaviors and benefits to the establishment and continuity of interpersonal relationship.In romantic conflicts,empathy promotes the understanding and sharing feelings between partners and contributes to the maintenance of intimate relationship.Drug manipulation studies have indicated that testosterone impairs one's empathy.However,the relationship between testosterone-related genes and empathic traits and the relationship between testosterone and empathic responses in conflict situations are not clear yet.In this thesis,we investigated the associations of testosterone level and related-genes with empathy traits and empathic responses of conflict.Study 1.The associations of testosterone level and related genes with empathy traits:240loved individuals were recruited.The testosterone baseline level in saliva were measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA);Enzyme chain reaction method was performed to genotype the rs700518 in aromatase gene(CYP19A1),the rs523349 in 5-alpha reductase 2gene(SRD5A2),and the rs727428 in sex hormone binding globulin gene(SHBG);The Chinese version of the Interpersonal Response Index(IRI)Scale was used to measure the empathy traits.The results were as follows.(1)The rs523349 of SRD5A2 was associated with empathic concern,personal distress,and total scores of IRI.As compared with C allele carriers,the individuals with the GG genotype showed higher empathic concern(?=-0.147,R~2=0.022,t=-2.225,p=0.027),personal distress(?=-0.167,R~2=0.028,t=-2.542,p=0.012)and total score of IRI(?=-0.175,R~2=0.031,t=-2.668,p=0.008).(2)There was no association of testosterone level with empathy traits(ps?0.167).Study 2.The associations of testosterone level and related genes with empathy responses:93 heterosexual couples were recruited and had conflict dialogues with conflict topics.Four observers encoded the empathic responses of the romantic conflict with the revised the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Response Index.The salivary testosterone level was measured with ELISA.The above genes were genotyped with enzyme chain reaction.The results were as follows.(1)The baseline level of testosterone were related to the self-reported personal distress,with a significant“actor effect”(p=0.006)and a non-significant“partner effect”(p=0.559).The self-reported personal distress during conflict was related to the post-conflict testosterone level,with a significant“actor effect”(p=0.017)and a non-significant“partner effect”(p=0.227).The observed acknowledge between partners was related to the baseline testosterone level,with a significant“actor effect”(p=0.003)and a no-significant“partner effect”(p=0.112).The observed acknowledge between partners was also related to the post-conflict testosterone levels,with a significant“actor effect”(p=0.040)and anon-significant“partner effect”(p=0.697).(2)The rs523349 of SRD5A2 was related to the observers rated reciprocal synchronization during conflict.The individuals with the GG genotype showed higher reciprocal synchronization than the ones with C allele(?=-0.155,R~2=0.024,t=-2.070,p=0.040).This study indicates that the level of testosterone are related to the self-reported and observers rated personal distress.The rs523349 of SRD5A2 gene is associated with empathic traits,such as empathic concern and personal distress,and observers rated reciprocal synchronization during conflict.In summary,this study highlights the important roles of testosterone in individual's empathic traits and romantic empathic responses.