Testosterone Is High among Young Black Men with Little Education

Participation in the “honor culture” of poor black inner cities puts young men on constant alert for challenges to their reputations. Hypothetically, this vigilance raises their testosterone (T), which in turn facilitates dominance contests that may end violently. One prior study reports the predicted hormonal pattern including higher T among young black men with low education, compared to young white men with low education, but no race difference in T between young men who are better educated or in older men (Mazur, 1995). However, an attempt to find this pattern on another large sample failed to do so (Mazur, 2009). The present results, using the NHANES 2011–2012 data set, do replicate the predicted pattern among men. The pattern is not seen among teenage boys or among females.