Sex and guns and acting on impulse

The New York Times science section has been yielding some interesting articles, especially when they are considered together.

In the May 23rd issue, Nicholas Bakalar’s Vital Signs notes a study led by James R. Roney, a professor at U. Cal. Santa Barbara. In it, 39 heterosexual men were tested for their testosterone levels and their interest in children, and then photographed with neutral expressions. These photos were shown to 29 women who were asked to rate the men on several factors:

Likes children
Masculine
Physically attractive
Kind

Then they were asked whether they considered the men attractive as short or long term partners in a relationship.

Apparently women can see us a mile off. They were very good at picking the men who like children and rated the high testosterone men as attractive. What’s more, they picked the high testosterone men for short term relationships and the guys who liked children for long term relationships. All this from looking at a face in a photograph. If I was still single I’d be going to get my testosterone level tested.

For those of you heterosexual bachelors out there looking for a good time but worried about your hormonal manliness, fear not. There is a solution short of steroid injections. In the May 9th NYT, Benedict Carey writes about a study at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. 30 male students were tested for testosterone levels and then given an assignment. They had to disassemble something and then write how-to instructions on the process. Half got a board game called “Mousetrap,” and half got a handgun. The researchers measured testosterone levels a few minutes later and found that the while the board game group stayed the same, the gun handlers experienced a spike in testosterone. The second half of the experiment had the men taste a glass of water with a drop of hot sauce in it and then prepare a glass of water with however much hot sauce they wanted to add, ostensibly for the next test subject. The gun group with the high testosterone added, on average, three times as much hot sauce as the girlymen who disassembled the board game. The higher the testosterone, the more hot sauce. To paraphrase a common bumpersticker, “Guns don’t kill people, guys experiencing testosterone spikes from handling guns kill people.”

Ok, two interesting studies, but put them together and the mind staggers a bit. Does consistent gun handling over time bolster testosterone levels, giving NRA members some kind of edge in the dating game? Can your average guy improve his chances before a night on the town by fondling a “roscoe,” or will he just end up getting in a fight? Did medieval mashers get a leg up (and over) with the local wenches by handling a crossbow? Does the effect extend back to Cro-Magnon teenagers with spears? Or does this high testosterone level have to be present during fetal and early childhood development? This brings up another question: What about the testosterone levels of boys raised in gun-filled households? It would make a certain amount of sense that boys brought up in an environment filled with culturally defined symbols of power and violence and an adult male “under the influence” would experience elevated testosterone levels.

This brings me to another area of study: Lead poisoning. Various studies have found that
1) Children exposed to lead, with high levels in their tissue, suffer brain damage. This can result in lowered IQ scores and, significant for my line of thought, increased aggression and loss of impulse control.
2) Children who live in households where one or more adults engage in shooting sports, sometimes including the reloading of spent cartridges, are exposed to high levels of environmental lead, which shows up in their tissues. Shooters bring home ultra-fine lead dust on their clothes, on their skin, and in their hair, which builds up in the home environment. Handling and casting lead bullets at home increases the exposure.

Guns, testosterone, lead, poor impulse control, aggression, sexual attractiveness, short term vs. long term – you write the novel. Or perhaps the news item. The more I learn about how much unnoticed hormonal and neurological factors influence our lives, the less I am sure that we are really in control. Add the “smelly t-shirt experiment” and I wonder how many invisible hands are on my steering wheel. As we learn more about the subliminal cues that guide our actions, I think that we will evolve a more deterministic view of human behavior. Gotta go - I have this strange, overpowering impulse to disassemble a handgun.