1. Testosterone Levels in Women and Men Who are Single, in Long-Distance Relationships, or Same-City Relationships
Sari M. van Anders and Neil V. Watson
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University
Hormones and Behaviors
Volume 51, Issue 2, February 2007, Pages
Megan Gessell

2. Theory
Relationship Status has an effect on a person’s testosterone levels

3. Hypothesis
Relationship Orientation: T (Testosterone) should be similar in partnered individuals
(regardless of physical partner presence) and lower than T levels in single people.
Relationship status: T should be lower in same-city partnered individuals than single or long distance partnered individuals.

4. Theoretical Construct
Testosterone Levels
-Corresponding Operational Definition:
Participants provided a saliva sample
Participants identified their sexual orientation via self report and the Kinsey Scale questions of sex-directed fantasy and behavior
Participants who scored 0 or 1 on both measures were categorized as heterosexuals and those who scored 2 or more on one or both the measures were categorized as non-heterosexuals
Completed a brief questionnaire about their demographics, health and background, and relationship status
Which included the Likert-type scale (from 1 = extremely to 7 = not at all) on questions such as level of commitment to the relationship, likelihood of being together with partner “forever”, and level of sexual attraction to partner over the past month.

5. Kinsey Scale 0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual
1- Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2- Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3- Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4- Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6- Exclusively homosexual

6. Design

7. Study and Subjects
ANOVA (analyses of variance), ANCOVA (analyses of covariance), or independent t-test when appropriate
* Group differences were evaluated using LSD (Least Significant Difference). Correlations were evaluated using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlations.
Subjects included 67 women (mean age = years, min = 17 years, max = 32 years) and 48 men (mean age = 21.47, min = 17 years, max = 40 years) all which were either from the undergraduate psychology participant pool and from the community through a poster advertisement all where prescreened for exogenous hormone use.
After they identified their sexual orientation via self-report and Kinsey questions it resulted in 43 heterosexual women, 24 non-heterosexual women, 28 heterosexual men, and 10 non-heterosexual men.
27 women and 21 men were single and not currently seeing anyone, 15 women and 12 men were same-city partnered, 17 women and 11 men were in a long distance relationship
All had graduated from high school
The majority (n=112) were currently students but (n=51) were employed in diverse occupations
They were diverse ethnically

8. Independent Variable Relationship Status
3 levels (same-city, long-distance, and single
Sex
2 levels (males and females)

9. Dependent Variable
Testosterone level

10. Results

11. Main Effect
Participants in long-distance relationships spent an average of 70 days per year together and participants that were in a same-city relationship spent on average of 243 days together
this was a significant difference, t (37) = 5.01, p<.001

12. Testosterone Levels Differences
= women
=men
* Indicates a significant
Difference at p<.05
< indicates a trend with
p < .10

13. Discussion

14. Partnered men displayed lower T than single men (same result for both same-city and long-distance partnered individuals).
Same-city partnered women displayed lower T than long-distance or single women.
Most same – city relationships did not live together.

15. What I would change: Larger sample size
I would have taken sample from all over not just one place
Had more participants that weren’t college students
Found out about how long the couples had been together
Not as many ANCOVA test and independent t-test done on different variables, made the study hard to fallow