Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Sexy Women Make Men Irrational


Wow! Bet this comes like a bolt from the blue, huh?

Researchers, Bram Van den Bergh and Siegfried Dewitte, at University of Leuven in Belgium, came to this conclusion while observing men playing a money-based ultimatum game that called for them to barter and negotiate how they would divvy-up 10 euros.

The scientists conducted the tests on subjects with varying levels of testosterone. Van den Bregh and Dewitte were interested in the doses of testosterone that the men were exposed to while developing in the womb. This - they say - is measurable by comparing the lengths of a man's index and ring fingers. Supposedly, men with high testosterone levels have relatively longer ring fingers.

The findings

When simply playing the game without outside influences, the men with the highest testosterone levels drove the hardest bargain, unwilling to settle for sub-par sums when negotiating.

However, the scientists noticed this pattern broke after the men looked at images of women in sexy lingerie.


Touching t-shirts, looking at pictures of elderly women, and photos of landscapes were used as control items. They had no influence on any of the men's decisions.

Once the men with high testosterone were exposed to the photos of the women, they were more willing to settle for a poorer deal. As a mater of fact, just touching a bra prior to playing the game seemed to squander the resolve of the testosterone-heavy men.

The images and objects did not significantly affect the men with lower levels of testosterone.


Testosterone levels and ring fingers, huh? I thought it was foot size. Well, at least it's scientific.

Ok now take another look at Kristin Kreuk. Don't you want to send me some money?

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I demand more images of Kreuk!!!