Female MBA students with higher levels of the "male" hormone testosterone were far more likely than those with lower levels to choose finance careers such as investment banking that can be lucrative but also risky, a team at Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago found.
"This study has significant implications for how the effects of testosterone could impact actual risk-taking in financial markets, because many of these students will go on to become major players in the financial world," University of Chicago's Luigi Zingales, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
"Furthermore, it could shed some light on gender differences in career choices. Future studies should further explore the mechanisms through which testosterone affects the brain."
Zingales and colleagues studied 550 MBA students at the University of Chicago who were forced, as part of their coursework, to give saliva for testosterone tests. Their fingers were also measured, because studies have shown that finger length is affected by how much testosterone a person was exposed to while in the mother's womb.