The role of testosterone in human romantic relationships

• We review evidence for the role of testosterone in romantic relationships.
• Testosterone promotes mate pursuit and may increase the odds of relationship entry.
• Investment in parenting and monogamous partnering predicts declines in testosterone.
• Testosterone exhibits rapid increases after exposure to potential mates.
• Elevated testosterone may predict reduced relationship satisfaction and commitment.

Testosterone may play important signaling roles in human romantic relationship dynamics. Testosterone appears to promote pursuit of mates and may therefore increase the odds of relationship entry. Because competitive pursuit of mates may interfere with stable pair bonds and effective parenting, however, entry into nurturant relationships may have a negative feedback effect on testosterone production and mating effort. In this article, we summarize evidence for testosterone acting as a signal that promotes mate pursuit at various timescales, and synthesize a range of recent findings into a heuristic model (‘The Testosterone-Relationship Cycle’) depicting the role of this hormone in the initiation, maintenance, and functioning of human mating relationships.