WASHINGTON, MAY 1:Estrogen fuels feelings of power and competition in women in much the same way testosterone does in men, researchers said on Wednesday in a study that shows the need to win is every bit as feminine as it is masculine.

Estrogen levels shot up in power-motivated women when they won and plummeted when they lost, while the opposite was true in women who appeared not to be interested in power, the researchers found.

“The biology of dominance in women has been vastly under- researched. On top of that, it sets up very nice parallels with men and testosterone,” said Steven Stanton of the University of Michigan, who conducted the study.

Earlier this month, British researchers reported that male financial traders made more money when their testosterone levels were high.

Stanton, working under the guidance of German researcher Oliver Schultheiss of Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, wanted to see if estrogen or testosterone was affected when women competed.

“We put women in this study in a face-to-face contest where they competed on a computer task for 10 rounds,” Stanton said in a telephone interview.

“Following each round, they were told whether they won or lost and they could watch each other’s reaction to winning or losing.”

Saliva samples were taken to measure their hormone levels.

“Even before the contest started, we have this measure of power motivation or dominance motivation that we use,” he added.

Volunteers are shown a neutral picture and asked to write a short story about it. “We look for themes that are related to power. The more power themes that someone writes about, the more power-motivated that we consider them,” said Stanton.

Estrogen was linked to personality type as well, Stanton said — and the women, mostly in their 20s, were evenly divided.

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