[GalasaKoll]

I (and several of my friends) work in an industry where year-end bonus is the largest component

of your pay. Now in the early stages of your career in this industry, bonuses and increases in pay are often fairly

predictable and the announcement rarely comes as a big surprise. And the pay in the early years is small when

considered in relation to what you will be making a handful of years later.

Yet it became a joke amongst us

as to how utterly predictably success with women for us would spike around bonus season (different dates for each of

us) and then fall off over the coming weeks. Nobody particularly felt they were behaving differently yet women

seemed to have a different perception.

I think this must have to do with a spike in testosterone and

serotonin levels, similar to that observed in supporters of the winning team after sports matches.

In primate

males you tend to see an evolution in serotonin+testosterone levels after each challenge for dominance with another

male. And give a low-ranking monkey some Prozac to boost serotonin levels, introduce him into a new troupe and his

status becomes substantially higher (even though that monkey basically has the same immune status and physical

capacity to win a fight).

That makes me inclined to think that - although clearly tounge and belgareth are

right about substance winning out over a superficial veneer in the end - one shouldn't neglect the value of

psyching oneself up (and of avoiding any potentially negative catalyst to confidence) before social

events.

I'm generally not a big fan of the author of the piece that follows, but in this case I think he is

right on the money.

http://www.bristollair.com/outergame...tobeagoodwing/

Hope if

controversial this is at least controversial in an interesting way. Here are another couple of links to stuff on

test, serotonin, aggression and

dominance...

http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/year2/a...ggression.html
http://hackvan.

com/p...-dominance.txt