Finger length ratio (2D:4D) correlates with physical aggression in men but not in women
Section snippets
Finger length ratio (2D:4D) correlates with physical aggression in men but not in women
Finger length ratio (2D:4D) is a sexually dimorphic trait. The ratio of second digit (index finger) to fourth digit (ring finger) is smaller for males than females in humans, mice, and baboons (Brown et al., 2002b, Manning, 2002a, Manning et al., 2000, McFadden and Bracht, 2003, McFadden and Shubel, 2002, Peters et al., 2002). In zebra finches, the sexual dimorphism in digit ratio is reversed, and males have relatively longer second digits (Burley and Foster, 2004). This reversed foot pattern
Results
Men had smaller finger length ratios than women (Table 1). Hostility, verbal, physical, and total aggression scores showed significant sexual dimorphism, while anger did not.
Anger significantly correlated with the other three sub-scales of aggression (hostility, verbal, and physical aggression) in men (Table 2). Of the other sub-scales, the two instrumental measures of aggression (verbal and physical) were correlated. All scores on the four sub-scales were correlated in women, except in the
Discussion
We found significant sexual dimorphism in physical aggression, verbal aggression and hostility but no difference in anger. Physical aggression was the most sexually dimorphic of the aggression indices (d = 1.05). These results agree with Buss and Perry (1992), who found hostility, verbal, and physical aggression, but not anger to be sexually dimorphic, and trait physical aggression to be most dimorphic (d = 0.89).
We found digit ratio to correlate with physical aggression, but not with
Acknowledgments
Research was funded by an NSERC (Canada) Discovery grant to PLH. We wish to thank Ray Engeszer, Jamie Dyce, Alinda Friedman, Bob Trivers and Paul Vasey for valuable discussion and Walter Espinoza and Tricia Lowrey for assistance in collecting the data. We also thank Christopher Sturdy, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript.
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2020, Personality and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :At the same time, although some research has linked the ratio to sensation seeking (Hampson et al., 2008), meta-studies have neither provided support for this negative association (Voracek, Tran, & Dressler, 2010) nor demonstrated a link between the ratio and female aggression (Bailey & Hurd, 2005; Hönekopp & Watson, 2011). On the other hand, whereas studies have reported weak quantitative effects for aggression, violence, and criminal behaviour (Bailey & Hurd, 2005; Hönekopp & Watson, 2011; Pratt, Turanovic, & Cullen, 2016; Turanovic, Pratt, & Piquero, 2017), the links between 2D:4D and sports performance appear more robust. These latter include such interesting findings as an association between a lower digit ratio and better football (Manning & Taylor, 2001) or rugby performance (Bennett, Manning, Cook, & Kilduff, 2010), greater football aggressiveness (Perciavalle et al., 2013), better defensive playing and more efficient scoring in basketball (Dyer, Short, Short, Manning, & Tomkinson, 2018).
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