Castration and personality: Correlation of androgen deprivation and estrogen supplementation with the Big Five factor personality traits of adult males

Genetic males may receive androgen deprivation therapy for reasons ranging from sexual reassignment to treating prostate cancer. We investigated the relationship of androgen deprivation to personality for voluntarily castrated males in a large-scale online survey. Based on the historical social positions of androgen-deprived males and contemporary research on testosterone, we predicted that modern day androgen-deprived males (n = 122) would differ on several axes of the Big Five factor personality inventory compared to eugonadal controls (n = 1229). Though not statistically significant, an increase in agreeability for the androgen-deprived group was observed. The role of estrogen on the personality of castrated males was also explored through androgen-deprived participants taking supplemental estrogen (n = 33). Estrogen was found to correlate with significantly higher agreeability scores.