UCL School of Management

Research seminar

Professor Modupe Akinola, Columbia Business School

Date

Tuesday, 25 April 2023
11:00 – 12:30
Location
Research Group
Organisations and Innovation
Description

UCL School of Management is delighted to welcome, Professor Modupe Akinola, Columbia Business School, to host a research seminar discussing; Collective Hormonal Profiles Predict Group Performance.

Abstract:

Prior research has shown that an individual’s hormonal profile can influence the individual’s social standing within a group. We introduce a different construct—a collective hormonal profile—which describes a group’s hormonal make-up. We test whether a group’s collective hormonal profile is related to its performance. Analysis of 370 individuals randomly assigned to work in 74 groups of three to six individuals revealed that group-level concentrations of testosterone and cortisol interact to predict a group’s standing across groups. Groups with a collective hormonal profile

characterized by high testosterone and low cortisol exhibited the highest performance. These collective hormonal level results remained reliable when controlling for personality traits and group-level variability in hormones. These findings support the hypothesis that groups with a biological propensity toward status pursuit (high testosterone) coupled with reduced stress-axis activity (low cortisol) engage in profit-maximizing decision-making. The current work extends the dual-hormone hypothesis to the collective level and provides a neurobiological perspective on the factors that determine who rises to the top across, not just within, social hierarchies

Open to
Staff
Last updated Thursday, 23 March 2023