Short Talks: In the Words of the Macho Man

In this episode of Short Talks from the Hill, Mitch Brown, psychology instructor in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, discusses his research on the physical features and behaviors that lead people to choose short-term and long-term mates. Brown’s research focuses on the physical features and behaviors that lead people to choose short-term and long-term mates. 

Jennifer Holland: Welcome to Short Talks from The Hill, a podcast of the University of Arkansas. I’m Jennifer Holland. With us today is Mitch Brown, psychology instructor in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Mitch is a social and experimental psychologist whose research focuses on the use of evolutionary perspectives in understanding motives that shape social perceptions and interpersonal preferences. What does that mean? Well, he studies the physical features and behaviors that lead people to choose short-term and long-term mates. And he also examines male formidability, or toughness, and how it informs stereotypes of personality and social functions. Want to know why some women are attracted to certain men? Mitch may have an answer for us. Mitch, Welcome to Short Talks.

Mitch Brown: Thank you for having me here.

JH: So, you’ve received a lot of media attention lately, thanks to a study you did about the reasons why women are attracted to men. This study was about male personality traits, if I recall — specifically those traits women prefer in men. Tell us a little more about that study.

MB: Okay. So, in that study, the more specific personality traits which you were referring is what we would know as humor styles. So, in this case here, kind of the evolutionary function of humor is to signal interest in another person across various relationship contacts as a way to ingratiate yourself. But at the same time, though, you may notice that not all humors are created equal. Some humors are much more appropriate than others. The same kinds of raunchy jokes you may hear in a stand-up show would probably not go over well with your grandma. So, you have to figure out what is the most appropriate route to do your humor. And in this case, your humor styles tend to take this approach of to where the target of the humor is being directed and ultimately the intent of it. So, in this case, here for this particular study, I was interested in two more interpersonal humor styles. So, humor being directed toward others and the intentions either being injurious or benign. In this case, your more benign style would be affiliative. Affiliative humor is along the lines of, you know, trying to ingratiate yourself with other people. No one is being put down. Everyone’s in on the joke. Whereas aggressive humor is one’s trying to ingratiate, yet somebody is going to be the butt of the joke. And in this case, previous research, including some of my own, shows that individuals who are more affiliative appear more attractive in a long-term mating context, the context being someone who wants to be a long term romantic partner – someone who could be seen as a faithful partner, potentially someone with whom you can have children versus aggressive humor, which is not necessarily more desirable in the short term context. But people, in particular women, tend to be more interested in aggressive humor in a short-term context, because the possible cost of an aggressive person will be mitigated by how short the relationship actually is.

JH: So, a takeaway for men from this is don’t make fun of other people – or at other people’s expense.

MB: If you want something long-term, absolutely not.

JH: Okay. So, you’ve also studied physical strength as a cue to men’s capability as protective parents. Explain to us what formidability means in this context and what you’ve discovered in your research.

MB: Oh, sure. So, in this case here, when I’m talking about formidability, I’m referring to men’s overall fighting ability, their physical prowess, their virility. It’s the lovely world of multidimensional constructs and trying to piece it all together. But in this case, your fighting ability is probably the best bet I can say with it. In this case here, the study to which you’re referring is basically inferences of formidability through men’s upper body strength. So, just by looking at someone, we can probably size them up and say, “Yeah, I’m not going to try to fight you.”  And in this case here, we have images of physically strong men in the study versus those who are not physically strong. And the notion here is, can we accurately infer men’s parenting abilities based on that physical appearance? And this is likely kind of like a downstream inference from a broader social context of, well, strong men are oftentimes preferred in group living by virtue of the fact that they can provide protection. They can represent you against possible intergroup threats. They can enforce certain social rules. In layman’s terms, they want a bodyguard. And in this case here, does this actually translate into parenting abilities or specific kinds of parenting abilities? So, in my research, I had the participants evaluate men who varied in their physical strength, so strong versus weak. And we often found that men who are physically strong, they actually appeared more effective at protecting their children versus men who were physically weak. But also though, this stereotype was actually at the expense of perceiving them as nurturing or caring, likely based on the idea of being that someone who seems physically strong, you’re not mapping that stereotype onto someone being warm and nurturing. So, there appears to be a bit of a perceptual tradeoff in what we’re inferring in this, and oftentimes some people may be more willing to incur a possible cost. Not saying that strong men are exploitative or not nurturing. It’s just that our stereotypes tend to operate in tension with each other. That if you’re looking for someone who’s protective, we appear to view them as less nurturing – and not only with this study that had recently gotten published, it’s something I’ve been consistently finding: that just as the stereotype of someone strong goes up, so too protection, so too the stereotypes of their nurturance, their warmth goes down.

JH: Now, you’ve also done a study on facial formidability as it relates to the performance of male professional wrestlers. Is that right?

MB: In the words of Randy Savage, “Oh, yeeeaaaahhhh.” Yeah, yeah, that was one of my more recent studies.

JH: Okay. And so tell me what that’s all about.

MB: Yeah, yeah. For the most part here, with that, that was kind of informed from a perspective of a Darwinian approach to dramaturgical tension – a fancy way of saying (and the industry is going to kill me for saying this) the psychology behind why fake fighting works. Yeah, I said the F-word. So, in this case here, as we’re talking about, well, in the simulated combat of pro-wrestling, we already know who’s more likely to win a certain kind of fight versus another. And historically, in the world of pro wrestling, the more formidable individuals, the actual better fighters in real life. They’re the ones who are always going to be promoted as the champions because they could actually win real fights. And this case here, we tried to determine who would actually be a good champion on TV to where people would say, “Yeah, it’s believable,” or somebody could actually make you suspend your disbelief. You’re ultimately in a position where you can say, “I want to make this person a top star.” But also, as we may have seen over the past 20 years, pro wrestling has gotten quite diverse in its representation of different kinds of combat styles. Not necessarily every kind of wrestler is going to be desirable in every kind of role based on their physical appearance. So, in this particular study, I was interested in men’s facial width to height ratio. So, the relative width of their face, you compare their height, and research shows pretty consistently that men with a higher ratio – basically men with a wider face overall, they tend to be more aggressive and they look more aggressive. There tends to be some connection with facial width and the masculinization process in utero, and for these individuals they just tend to be more aggressive and they tend to be better fighters. Men with wider faces actually historically survived more violent encounters based on certain records. Men with wider faces, they tend to be better fighters in mixed martial arts, actually. Men with these features tend to – they tend to have better win-loss records – that’s across weight classes, too. So, with this knowledge of how these men could actually fare in a fight, if you simulate the fight and, in this case you’re a man with a wide face, are we actually saying this person is a better kind of performer on some domains? And what we found in this study actually was that men with these wider faces, we view them as more likely to embody what the wrestling industry would call the “brawler archetype” almost. So if anyone listening is familiar with the wrestler Bruiser Brody, that would be a primary example. Someone who may be a performer who relies a lot on physical strength. So those kinds of performers. And we tend to view these individuals as more likely to get that push to be the top star of that company. But there’s also a bit of a downside for having that wide face. There’s also a stereotype of these men being less maneuverable and having less, like, mental finesse almost. So even though some of the stereotypes that I’ve discussed with wide-faced men, there appears to be a kernel truth to them. There are still some unfortunate downsides to these stereotypes, for which there is no kernel of truth that we view these men as less intelligent. So we view them as less capable of having incredible technical acumen or viewing them as being able to do things that require a lot of finesse. And for the most part here, men with wide faces appear to have a certain penalty in being perceived as able to do things that require more finesse.

JH: So, some might see these studies as slightly eccentric, you know, looking at neck size or studying the facial formidability of professional wrestlers. Do you think there is a larger question or theme you’re trying to answer or, you know, putting it another way, is there a fundamental underlying question you are trying to answer?

MB: Well, in the world of psychology, we – maybe other fields have this too – but I know in psychology, there’s always a phrase “Research is me-search.” And, in this case here, am I trying to navigate my own personal experience to figure out who I may ultimately be as a person and how this may actually latch on to what I ultimately study. And in this case here, I mean, lifelong wrestler, lifelong, you know, weightlifter – all those kinds of things. There’s likely some kernel truth to me wanting to understand how people may perceive me and at least what I hope to be a fairly formidable veneer myself. So there likely is that kind of running thread. But, the same time though, just even that, that’s kind of the start – the start of this all. I say this almost half joking – the way that I got started on this. There’s still fundamentally this, I guess you could say, interest in trying to move beyond just the me-search. So, as I dive further into my realm of work, I start to develop this broader meta theory understanding of evolution. So that way I can start to identify what are the actual gaps, what are some explanations with which I’m not satisfied currently in the literature. There are controversies with the facial, with the height ratio research I was discussing. Some people say there is no kernel of truth, some people say there are but with certain nuance. And this case here, a lot of times this turns into me trying to thread a very complicated needle with so many moving parts. We are so restricted by the language we use to describe things and unfortunately, with those linguistic restrictions, we oftentimes are speaking different languages between camps, and we end up kind of talking over each other. And one of my ultimate goals in this research on formidability or mate preferences is I really want to try to thread that needle that careful, nuanced way so that way I can get everyone in the conversation and show where somebody could ultimately be correct. I’ve been in situations where people have not, you know, been able to replicate some of my findings. So, I’ve had to have discussions with them to figure out where these, you know, little differences could have been emerging. And it ultimately becomes fruitful. But I also am in a position now where I’m trying to move ourselves closer to this objective truth, knowing that there are just the fundamental differences in our epistemologies for addressing these questions.

JH: And how do you come up with the ideas for your studies? I mean, you talked a little bit about how there might be a personal interest there, but what makes for a good idea?

MB: Well, for the most part here – and this goes back to grad school – and I can hear my master’s thesis program director kind of whispering in my ear this all the time ten years later, “What’s the theory?” And he would say that to us and it would drive us crazy in grad school. But it’s something that I really hold true and I try to foster with my students now. In my case here, a strong grasp on theory, a strong grasp on what could likely happen if you understand just these basic processes that will compel you to be able to find where are the holes, where are the gaps in knowledge. Not necessarily that you should study something because no one else has done it before, but because there is some kind of fundamental understanding of what’s actually missing is a way to weave things together. In my case, I noticed these potential knowledge gaps and I tried to fill them in myself based on my particular perspective that I know that not everyone would ultimately have. You know, even though I have a very specific kind of training, I know that not everyone is from my particular school of thought. So, I’m able to find those gaps based on what I know, and I try to integrate these different camps of knowledge as best I possibly can together.

JH: Finally, book recommendations. I love reading. I actually love reading books that touch on psychology too. So, if somebody wanted to read more about psychology involving relationships or attraction or any of the subjects that we’ve touched on today, what would you recommend?

MB: Well, that kind of depends on a lot of factors. I’d say a nice, accessible book for someone looking to get into these topics, in particular, in terms of attraction or mating research, I would say there are two primary books I would consider. They’re a bit older at this point, but they’re still being updated to some degree. I would recommend “The Mating Mind” by Geoffrey Miller or “The Evolution of Desire” by David Buss, or if you wanted to move yourself a bit further into more recent frontiers in evolutionary theories of mating, I would also recommend another book from David Buss, a more recent one, “Men Behaving Badly,” which oftentimes covers the evolutionary underpinnings of risky sexual behavior, sexual misconduct, and the psychology behind why MeToo was able to happen. So, I would highly recommend those kinds of outlets.

JH: Alright, Mitch Brown, thank you so much for being here today.

MB: Thank you for having me.

Matt McGowan: Short Talks from the Hill is now available wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and additional podcasts, visit arkansasresearch.uark.edu, the home of research and economic development news at the University of Arkansas. Music for Short Talks from the Hill was written and performed by local musician Ben Harris.

A version of this story also appeared in the University of Arkansas’ Arkansas Research publication.