I am a social psychologist who studies neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying variability in human competitive and aggressive behaviour. Some of our recent work indicates that testosterone concentrations rise in response to winning a video game competition (Xbox Kinect) and decrease in response to losing (Carré et al., 2013). Furthermore, such hormonal responses to competition predict future competitive (Carré & McCormick, 2008) and aggressive behaviour (Carré et al., 2009; 2010; Geniole et al., 2011; Carré et al., 2013). Another line of work examines associations between facial structure and social behaviour. This work indicates that variability in the face’s width to height ratio predicts aggressive behaviour (Carré & McCormick, 2008). Moreover, this effect is particularly strong among men with relatively low social status (Goetz et al., in press). Also, people can accurately estimate another’s propensity for aggressive behaviour based on emotionally neutral facial cues (Carré et al., 2009; 2010).
My lab takes a social neuroscience approach to research by combining theory and methodology from social and experimental psychology, endocrinology, neuroscience, social cognition, and pharmacology.
