20. Puppets on a String

Chapter 20 from "Testosteronecollapse"

                                  Sandy Shaw singing “Puppet on a String”

Hormones and behaviour programs have a deep impact on our subjective experience and behavior. It is astonishing and also somewhat frightening that we are hardly aware of these influences. Here are a few examples:

A man is presented with two portrait photos of the same woman, with the pupils slightly enlarged in one photo and reduced in the other. When asked which of these supposedly “identical twins” is more likeable, the photo with the larger pupils is regularly preferred, although the test subjects are unable to say why [137]. If we find someone likeable in everyday life, our pupils involuntarily dilate and we become more likeable. In the case of reciprocity, this can lead to love at first sight.

Women prefer the smell of men with different transplant antigens, who are then more likely to get married, perhaps an advantage for the immunity of the offspring and in any case a barrier against inbreeding [138]. Taking the pill can change odour preference. All this also happens unconsciously.

It has already been mentioned that a man's testosterone level rises in the presence of a woman during her fertile days [119]. This is probably due to odour signals that we do not perceive. If we then also know that the increased testosterone switches off the drive-inhibiting forebrain ... “Voi che sapete che cosa è amor, ...”.

These unconsciousnesses have nothing to do with Freudian repression, because what was never conscious cannot be repressed. But as we know, unconsciousness does not only affect such biological behaviours. Unconscious motives can also determine our actions in other ways, which we then rationalise with some kind of protective assertions. In his book “The hidden Persuaders”, Vance Packard shows how commercial advertising exploits this [139].

Unfortunately, unconsciousness does not eliminate all these mechanisms; on the contrary, it leaves us defenceless against them. Unconsciousness may also contribute to the peculiar resistance to biological knowledge that will be discussed later (chapters 55-57).

We seem to hang like puppets on the strings of hormones and urges, which we must obey without our knowing.

                               There was a young man who said "Damn!
                                I perceive with regret that I am
                                But a creature that moves 
                                In predestinate grooves
                                I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram."

                               Maurice E. Hare (1886-1967)

The next short chapter 21 will define what Testosterone means as a message to the body. And this link takes you to the start of the book.

The German edition of this book is available as e-book, paperback or hardcover in any bookshop and here: https://shop.tredition.com/booktitle/Testosteronkollaps/W-349-585-556.

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119. Tarumi, W. and K. Shinohara, Women's body odour during the ovulatory phase modulates testosterone and cortisol levels in men. PLoS One, 2020. 15.(3): p. e0230838. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230838.

137. Hess, E., H. , The role of pupil size in communication. Scientific American, 1975. 233.(November): p. 110-119. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1038/scientificamerican1175-110.

138. Wedekind, C. and D. Penn, MHC genes, body odours, and odour preferences. Nephrol Dial Transplant, 2000. 15: p. 1269-1271. https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/15.9.1269.

139. Packard, V., The hidden persuaders. 1957, Philadephia: David McKay; https://archive.org/details/hiddenpersuaders00vanc.