Pretty girls make adolescent boys do dumb things

A recent study published in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science reports that the presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone and physical risk taking in young men. According to Sage Journals Online:

The authors report a field experiment with skateboarders that demonstrates that physical risk taking by young men increases in the presence of an attractive female. This increased risk taking leads to more successes but also more crash landings in front of a female observer. Mediational analyses suggest that this increase in risk taking is caused in part by elevated testosterone levels of men who performed in front of the attractive female. In addition, skateboarders’ risk taking was predicted by their performance on a reversal-learning task, reversal-learning performance was disrupted by the presence of the attractive female, and the female’s presence moderated the observed relationship between risk taking and reversal learning. These results suggest that men use physical risk taking as a sexual display strategy, and they provide suggestive evidence regarding possible hormonal and neural mechanisms.

I used to have a graphic reserved for this. Where is it? Oh yeah, right here. The pinup girl above right was a sticker design found on eBay somewhere, I lost my spotlight comments. is that your sexy look or are you pissed off? I kind of prefer Charlotte Diesel.

– Thanks to Steve B for the tip. [Source: Ars Technica]