

Men Take More Risks When Pretty Women Are Around - aliston
http://www.livescience.com/culture/attractive-women-risk-taking-100319.html

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rosser
I'm a snowboarder, and, wanting to better understand the risks I assume when I
go off-piste -- and how to avoid them -- I took an avalanche safety course a
few years ago. At one point during the lecture portion, the instructor said
something to the effect that the single most positively correlated statistic
with avalanche fatalities is whether there's a girl in the party. I don't know
how the data behind that claim was obtained, or even if it's simply an
assertion offered to make us think twice before hitting a questionable slope,
but it's worked so far: I'm still here, and I've remembered it every time I've
strapped on my beacon since.

~~~
hristov
So every time you strap on your beacon, you say to yourself "Remember rosser:
be safe, no girls!"

~~~
electromagnetic
The text in your quotation marks reads to me like a religious pro-celibacy
statement, while incidentally sounding like a pro-homosexuality statement. You
may have just added another link to the long held belief of mine that the
religious right are simply self-denying homosexuals.

~~~
cryptnoob
> the religious right are simply self-denying homosexuals

You're quite the dick, aren't you? But that's OK, because you're so smart.
It's OK to be a dick if you're smart.

------
samd
In other news, it gets bright outside when sun appears in sky.

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mpobrien
Just because it seems obvious to all of us, doesn't necessarily mean doing
research on it is a waste of time. It's interesting and useful even to see
things like "dudes just want to impress chicks" put into the context of
psychology, physiology and evolution.

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superjared
I'm only as successful as I am because I wanted to prove to my girlfriend (now
my wife) that I am worthy of her. Plus, she's hot.

~~~
bokonist
I'm curious, did marrying her end up curbing your ambition or making you
complacent?

~~~
bh23ha
I can't recall where I heard the expression: "Marriage turns of genius like a
tap."

~~~
electromagnetic
If you give the nerd sex, computers lose their interest.

I believe there could be an XKCD graph in this for frequency of sex correlated
against infrequency of genius.

~~~
orangecat
IIRC there was a graph along those lines in Cryptonomicon. While there may be
some truth to that, I'm pretty sure the optimal frequency is not zero.

~~~
Psyonic
Correct. He'd start to get so horny that he couldn't focus, so he'd have to
masturbate (which was a small relief) or have sex, which was a great relief,
and gave him weeks of productive work.

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ulysses
The article doesn't seem to have a link to the research.

The journal:

<http://spp.sagepub.com/current.dtl>

The abstract:

<http://spp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/1/57>

The paper (pdf):

<http://spp.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/1/1/57>

------
thorax
<http://ftp.iza.org/dp4793.pdf>

Interesting similar findings that men take more risks when playing women in
chess (when looking at ~1.4 million games):

 _For male players the probability of choosing a solid strategy is about 1.3
percent lower when facing a female opponent compared to a male opponent_

Additionally, women chess players appear to be more risk averse in general.

~~~
hristov
That is kind of obvious. B*tches love it when I bring out my queen early.

------
Groxx
They take more risks because _it works_. That won't change unless society
makes massive changes, which is unlikely to happen (much less any time soon).

Though the article wasn't too specific, it seems to me that it works because
the risky stuff makes people stand out. Success in higher risk endeavors is
much more eye-catching than success in the mundane. You see _identical_
behavior in many other areas: startups that take a risk and succeed are more
likely to get funding, anyone that does something unique (a risk itself) is
rewarded heavily if they succeed.

I doubt it has _anything_ to do with testosterone, and much more to do with
perceived reward. Sure, _that_ can cause an increase in testosterone, but it's
definitely not required to do so to exhibit this behavior.

~~~
philh
(Not read the article, apologies if I miss something.)

>They take more risks because _it works_.

Agreed.

>I doubt it has anything to do with testosterone, and much more to do with
perceived reward

This makes it seem like a conscious decision, which I don't buy. "Pretty woman
will like me" is just one more factor in the risk/reward calculation, which is
made subconsciously.

I would say it's more likely that testosterone is one variable in the
risk/reward calculation, and is released in the presence of pretty women
(among other things) because that turns out to be what works.

~~~
Groxx
Who says it's conscious? Perceived reward can be fully subconscious, just look
at any minor addiction (and some major), or any habit. Typically, people don't
know why they do things in those areas (among others), they just _do_ them.

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BoppreH
I'm sorry, but that seems rather obvious to me. Males have been trying to
impress females since the dawn of time.

Was this research really required? They had a nice experiment setup, but
didn't seem to bother with different age ranges, sexual orientation or any
other parameters that might yield actually interesting results.

~~~
gloob
In order:

1) Just because something is obvious doesn't mean it shouldn't be researched.
For instance, for a long time it was obvious that light things fall slower
than heavy things.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by "really required". In the literal sense, _no_
research is "really required". In the non-literal sense, it's better to have
data about something than to not have data about it.

3) I'm not entirely certain why whether you find the results interesting or
not is something the researchers should take into account. What's more, adding
more independent variables to the experiment would complicate things
unnecessarily.

~~~
BoppreH
I agree that some data is better than no data, but I think these researchers'
time and money could be put to a better use.

And sure common sense sometimes is wrong and it must be corrected, but I don't
think this case was a priority.

~~~
RevRal
On Richard Feynman and spinning plates, from
<http://worldandi.misto.cz/_MAIL_/feynman.html> :

"He challenged himself to describe in equations the wobbling movement of a
spinning plate being tossed in the air by a student in a Cornell cafeteria.
After much effort, he was able to show that, consistent with his observations,
for a small degree of wobble, a one-to-two ratio between the wobble and spin
was indeed valid. When Feynman excitedly described his results to Bethe, the
other scientist listened with interest but wanted to know their practical
value. [...] Ironically, he found that the spinning-plate movement he had
studied just for fun also had application to the electron-spin problem."

It's about creating an accurate model of the world and universe. I never saw
the point of being caustic against any kind of research.

------
imp
I wonder if it works the other way around.

~~~
electromagnetic
From what I've read on the subject, no. It's interesting that boys perform
vastly better in single sex schools, while there is little difference in
female performance between joint and single sex schools.

I've wondered if this trait in males is the historical cause of the Knight-in-
Shining-Armour legends. If a man sees a woman in trouble, is he really more
likely to save her?

There's already a strong correlation between near-death experiences and
mistaken love (apparently extreme fear and lust have the same biological
pathway, which is too Freudian for me to touch at 9pm), so Sir Knight saving
the lady would almost undoubtedly get some action in the bed, which fulfils
the reproduction criteria (pre-condom era) for gene spreading.

