Spit personality

 
Published: Monday 31 January 1994

-- YOUR SALIVA may give a clue to your personality, says James M Dabbs, professor of psychology at Georgia State University in the US. Dabbs is trying to establish whether a relationship exists between the levels of testosterone in saliva samples and human behaviour. Dabbs has collected about 2,500 saliva samples -- from murderers, ministers, farmers, the rich and the poor, men and women -- and found large differences in their testosterone levels. On an average, women had a testosterone level of 1-2 nanograms per decilitre of saliva, whereas most men fall in the 8-10 nanogram range. According to Dabbs, a violent female prisoner showed a reading of 3-4 and a violent man had a reading of 17 or more.

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