Science Supports Garman's "Beta Male" Theory

[AUChizad]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2325414/Men-physically-strong-likely-right-wing-political-views.html

Men who are physically strong are more likely to have right wing political views

    Weaker men more likely to support welfare state and wealth redistribution
    Link may reflect psychological traits that evolved in our ancestors
    Strength was a proxy for ability to defend or acquire resources
    There is no link between women's physical strength and political views

By Emma Innes

PUBLISHED: 05:21 EST, 16 May 2013

Men who are physically strong are more likely to take a right wing political stance, while weaker men are inclined to support the welfare state, according to a new study.

Researchers discovered political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength.

Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to the research.
Men who are physically strong - like Arnold Schwarzenegger - are more likely to take a right wing political stance

Men who are physically strong - like Arnold Schwarzenegger - are more likely to take a right wing political stance

The principal investigators - psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen, of Aarhus University in Denmark, and Daniel Sznycer, of the University of California in the U.S., believe that the link may reflect psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments and continue to influence behaviour today.

Professor Petersen said: ‘While many think of politics as a modern phenomenon, it has - in a sense - always been with our species.’

In the days of our early ancestors, decisions about the distribution of resources were not made in courthouses or legislative offices, but through shows of strength.

With this in mind, Professor Petersen and Professor Sznycer hypothesised that upper-body strength - a proxy for the ability to physically defend or acquire resources - would predict men's opinions about the redistribution of wealth.

The researchers collected data on bicep size, socio-economic status, and support for economic redistribution from hundreds of people in the United States, Argentina and Denmark.

In line with their hypotheses, the data revealed that wealthy men with high upper-body strength were less likely to support redistribution, while less wealthy men of the same strength were more likely to support it.
Men with less upper body strength are more likely to support the welfare state - like Labour leader Ed Miliband

Men with less upper body strength are more likely to support the welfare state - like Labour leader Ed Miliband

Professor Petersen said: ‘Despite the fact that the United States, Denmark and Argentina have very different welfare systems, we still see that - at the psychological level - individuals reason about welfare redistribution in the same way.

‘In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursue the self-interested position on redistribution.’

Men with low upper-body strength, on the other hand, were less likely to support their own self-interest.

Wealthy men of this group showed less resistance to redistribution, while poor men showed less support.

Professor Petersen said: ‘Our results demonstrate that physically weak males are more reluctant than physically strong males to assert their self-interest - just as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation among small numbers of individuals, rather than abstract electoral dynamics among millions.’

However, the researchers found no link between upper-body strength and redistribution opinions among women.

Professor Petersen argued that this is likely due to the fact that, over the course of evolutionary history, women had less to gain, and also more to lose, from engaging in direct physical aggression.

He said, together, the results indicate that an evolutionary perspective may help to illuminate political motivations, at least those of men.

Professor Petersen added: ‘Many previous studies have shown that people's political views cannot be predicted by standard economic models.

‘This is among the first studies to show that political views may be rational in another sense, in that they're designed by natural selection to function in the conditions recurrent over human evolutionary history.’

The findings were published in the journal Psychological Science.

[AUChizad]

Assuming you guys read "Science" as the first word of the thread and skipped right over this.

[Townhallsavoy]

Assuming you guys read "Science" as the first word of the thread and skipped right over this.

That science stuff says that global warming's going to take our guns!  You beta pussy!

[Townhallsavoy]

Interesting article though -

I do wonder if our low testosterone contributes to our welfare state as well.  It goes along with being a "beta" male.

Our diet does not help with testosterone levels.  Sugar, alcohol, and other unnecessary carbs deplete our T levels and add in a sedentary lifestyle, and you've got yourself a typical ornery, sexless American male. 

[AU_Tiger_2000]

Assuming you guys read "Science" as the first word of the thread and skipped right over this.

Awwww Science.  The thing that seeks to provide hard concrete evidence to obtain conclusions that will never change such as:

Pollution and smog are going to cause an ice age as it blocks out the sun ('80's), or global warming as greenhouse gases buildup ('90's), or just climate change both colder and hotter that will be bad, bad I say!, though we can't really tell you what is going to happen (today)

The universe is formed by the big bang which sent everything shooting out into space  which at some point will decelerate and move back together until the next big bang, or will continue to accelerate apart due to dark matter until we can no longer see anything else in the universe

The atom that builds up all matter is a positive mass with electrons contained inside of it, no wait, that's a positive mass orbited by electrons!, wait wait, it's a group of positive charged particles surrounded by an electron cloud which can have an electron inside of it at any place at any particular time and these particles are made up of smaller particles which seem to have random properties, until we look at them and then they stay that way, or it creates an alternate universe that .........

[Vandy Vol]

Yeah, science sucks.  It's not like it got us to the moon or anything.

[AWK]

Yeah, science sucks.  It's not like it got us to the moon or anything.

That was filmed in a studio.  Science is for pussies.  Real men believe the earth rotates around the sun, photographs steal your soul, and if you try to ride a boat to Hawaii you will fall off the edge of the Earth.

[Token]

It's one thing to have a long line of peers and constituents calling you a pussy, but to have scientists theorizing just how much of a pussy you are?  I'd say Obama is having a bad week.   

[Buzz Killington]

Great...another $5M wasted on a grant to pontificate something that any guy at Gold's Gym could have told you.

[WiregrassTiger]

Article too long but I got the jest. So, are Libertarians bisexual?

[AUChizad]

Awwww Science.  The thing that seeks to provide hard concrete evidence to obtain conclusions that will never change such as:

Pollution and smog are going to cause an ice age as it blocks out the sun ('80's), or global warming as greenhouse gases buildup ('90's), or just climate change both colder and hotter that will be bad, bad I say!, though we can't really tell you what is going to happen (today)

The universe is formed by the big bang which sent everything shooting out into space  which at some point will decelerate and move back together until the next big bang, or will continue to accelerate apart due to dark matter until we can no longer see anything else in the universe

The atom that builds up all matter is a positive mass with electrons contained inside of it, no wait, that's a positive mass orbited by electrons!, wait wait, it's a group of positive charged particles surrounded by an electron cloud which can have an electron inside of it at any place at any particular time and these particles are made up of smaller particles which seem to have random properties, until we look at them and then they stay that way, or it creates an alternate universe that .........

[AUChizad]

Article too long but I got the jest. So, are Libertarians bisexual?

Put it this way:

There's the all brawn, no brain jock types.

There's the effeminate nerds with the brains.

Then there's the rare breed that is blessed with both.

[AU_Tiger_2000]

Yeah, science sucks.  It's not like it got us to the moon or anything.

No that was engineering, much more awesome in every way. 

See engineering got us there with gigantic machines that shoot fire and give the finger to gravity.  Then engineering provided  a chariot for our space suit clad warriors that allowed them to go dune running on the moon.  Then science took over and they picked up rocks.

[bottomfeeder]

tl;dc

[WiregrassTiger]

Put it this way:

There's the all brawn, no brain jock types.

There's the effeminate nerds with the brains.

Then there's the rare breed that is blessed with both.

I think they call the rare breed kind the WiregrassTiger kind.

[Snaggletiger]

I thought gingers stole your soul.