Secondary sexual traits that develop under the action of testosterone, such as masculinehuman male facial characteristics, have been proposed to signal the strength of the immunesystem due to the sex hormone’s immunosuppressive action. Recent work has suggested thatglucocorticoid stress hormones may also influence expression of such sexual signals due totheir effects on immune function. Precise roles, however, remain unclear. Here we show positiverelationships between testosterone, facial attractiveness and immune function (antibodyresponse to a hepatitis B vaccine) in human males, and present some preliminary evidencethat these relationships are moderated by naturally co-occurring cortisol (a glucocorticoidstress hormone involved in the fight-or-flight response). We conclude that our results providesupport for a role of glucocorticoids in hormonally mediated sexual selection.
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