E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Jason Merritt / Getty Images
Actor Chris Hemsworth arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards held at Gibson Amphitheatre on June 3 in Universal City, California.
By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
Movie star Chris Hemsworth plays a macho guy as both the huntsman in "Snow White and the Huntsman" and Thor in "The Avengers." But new research suggests that men with Hemsworth's broad-faced, square-jawed look aren't all aggression and brawn.
In fact, men with wider faces are more likely to sacrifice for their team, according to the study, published online May 23 in the journal Psychological Science. The findings suggest that people's first impressions of macho men — that they're uncooperative, cold and even dishonest — aren't so accurate.
"Men with wider faces have typically been portrayed as 'bad to the bone,'" study researcher Michael Stirrat of the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom said in a statement.
Exposure to high testosterone levels in the womb may bestow men with more "masculine" faces, manifesting in prominent jawlines and small eyes. These differences become clear at puberty, when testosterone levels rise in boys and their faces mature. Because testosterone is associated with aggression, some research has linked wide faces with the kind of guy who is always spoiling for a fight.
Stirrat and his colleague David Perrett suspected the story might not be that simple. They gave University of St. Andrews students money to play a group game in which they could either freeload off other players or risk their money to benefit the group as a whole. Half of the students were told that their winnings would be compared with the winnings of other St. Andrews groups. The others were told that their winnings would be compared with the winnings of groups from Edinburgh University, a rival school.
The wider a man's face, the less likely he was to cooperate with his group when told that he'd be compared with other men from his school. But when given an outside rival, these broad-faced macho guys got competitive. Suddenly, they became more likely than average to gamble their own money for the good of their group. [The History of Human Aggression]
The findings reveal that masculine traits can come out in both pro-social and anti-social ways. In other words, masculine guys may be more aggressive in general, but their manly characteristics are downright warm-and-fuzzy in some circumstances, such as when they need to support the home team.
The finding bolsters research released in 2011 that found that wide-faced CEOs tend to lead better-performing companies than their narrow-faced counterparts. Perhaps these macho CEOs are more willing to sacrifice for their team, the researchers suggest.
More from LiveScience:
- Busted! 6 Gender Myths in the Bedroom & Beyond
- 10 Things Every Woman Should Know About a Man's Brain
- Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind
More from The Body Odd:
- 'Truman Show' delusion: Believing your life is a reality TV show
- White Americans' heads are getting bigger -- literally, study shows
- Does the sun make you sneeze? It's not just you
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
What a blatantly stupid article. At no time what so ever did they even link real 'macho' traits to the behaviour discussed. Instead they link some silly perceived physical trait to a very generalized view of machoism. Why are we stuck having to constantly read such poorly written blog quality articles that appear to be coming from non-educated juvenile seat shops. This sort of stuff really gives science a bad image.
Um.... the writer needs to do some FACT CHECKING.
Chris Hemsworth = Thor
Liam Hemsworth = Huntsmen
Granted that as brother they share similar phsyical characteristics but as actors they really are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!!!!!!
Whatever happened to fact-checking?
jax - they got it right - Liam was in the Hunger Games - Chris was in Snow White, Thor and the Avengers...
still a lame article though...
Go figure. The men that are most likely to be stereotyped as jerks are actually likely to be virtuous.
"The finding bolsters research released in 2011 that found that wide-faced CEOs tend to lead better-performing companies than their narrow-faced counterparts. Perhaps these macho CEOs are more willing to sacrifice for their team, the researchers suggest."
Oh great, another reason to discriminate when hiring and promoting. Go for the wide faced guy. Conventional wisdom also once dictated that white males made the best CEO's.
Blatant face-ism. Where are the PC police?
"The wider a man's face, the less likely he was to cooperate with his group when told that he'd be compared with other men from his school. But when given an outside rival, these broad-faced macho guys got competitive. Suddenly, they became more likely than average to gamble their own money for the good of their group."
What? Perceive their actions after they were to lose, they'd then turn it around on their team that it was all their fault and take no blame. While they may not entirely mean it and they could apologize for it later, it gives enough spin to take the heat off of them. You see this many times in your local sports(high school and college), but won't see it on TV because of PR making sure it doesn't ever get heard. People are smart not to say it, but they still think it.