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Notice the keen implication in the title that testosterone causes reduction in cognitive empathy - making the reader now brainstorm ways to prove the hypothesis instead of considering if its the correct question to be asking in the first place.

To illustrate my point, consider if this was the title: There is no evidence that being female reduces cognitive function.



The paper's abstract mentions that, "previous studies reported that testosterone administration impaired cognitive empathy in healthy humans."

When you're trying to replicate previous studies but get a null result, it's reasonable to put that right in the title.


> Notice the keen implication in the title that testosterone causes reduction in cognitive empathy

Well, yeah. Kind of a "duh" from the article which quotes the scientist:

"Several earlier studies have suggested a connection between testosterone and reduced cognitive empathy..."

So no implication needed, creating supporting evidence for that hypothesis was actually already being done, and this one counters that existing narrative.




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