You Go, Ladies!

by Maria F. Aldana — May 15, 2008

Women can be competitive in all facets of life, and we owe it to our own natural hormones. In fact, you might be able to blame your hormones for those days when you're fired up to do something as well as those when you feel like laying low. High estrogen is known to stimulate a woman's competitive nature. "In men, power motivation is associated with heightened levels of testosterone, particularly after a contest victory; in women, estrogen appears to be the critical hormone for power motivation," states German researcher Oliver Schultheiss. In a German and US study, researchers tested the estrogen levels of women when winning and losing a competition. The estrogen levels skyrocketed when they won and went downhill when they lost. According to Steve Stanton of the University of Michigan, "Estrogen is very behaviorally potent and is actually a close hormonal relative to testosterone. In female mammals, estrogen has been tied to dominance, but there has been scant research examining the behavioral roles of estrogen in women."