A study with a decent sample size (N = 274 female participants) found that the index finger to ring finger ratio (2D:4D) in women predicts their potential risk of cheating.
Being more exposed to the sex hormone oestrogen in the womb leads to women’s index fingers growing longer than their ring finger.
By contrast, being exposed to more of the male sex hormone testosterone in the womb has a more ‘masculinising’ effect – and results in a longer ring finger and a shorter index finger.
Men with longer ring fingers than index fingers have been found to be better sportsmen.
Eiluned Pearce of Oxford University carried out the research which has been published in a Royal Society Journal.
She took measurements of the finger lengths of 274 female volunteers and also sampled their DNA.
They also completed psychological tests on their relationship quality.
She found that ‘women with higher (more feminine) left hand digit ratios are more impulsive and rate their romantic relationships less favourably.’ She added that the finding is ‘intriguing, because the opposite might be expected’.
Ok, a few words of caution. As with any sociosexuality research that relies in part on self-report surveys, take it with a grain of salt. Women lie, and women lie a lot when the question has to do with their romantic longings and sexual history. Women as a sex will “lie down” (heh), meaning they will undercount the number of men they have slept with and will reclassify non-vaginal sex as platonic friendship.
Having said that, we can assume, since women will lie in one direction (to socially signal more chasteness than they in reality possess), that the differences in sexual behavior or relationship satisfaction between high and low finger ratio women would hold as a valid finding, despite the magnitude of those differences possibly skewed by social expectation bias. This would only not be the case if, for some reason, high finger ratio women and low finger ratio women lied at different frequencies. That is, if high 2D:4D women lied more about their romantic lives than low 2D:4D women lied about theirs, we could not trust any uncorrected self-report data that attempted to compare the two groups.
This isn’t an idle misgiving. It’s plausible that very feminine women are more disposed to lying about their chasteness than are masculinized women, given that femininity is in general associated with a greater sensitivity to social pressure and with affinity for emotional manipulation of others.
One more word of caution: the researchers appear to have used “impulsivity” and “dissatisfaction with relationship” as proxies for “higher likelihood of cheating”. These aren’t equivalent, despite the former two characteristics being a leading indicator of the latter risk. Dissatisfied women in relationships can conceivably control themselves and resist infidelity……
HAHAHAH OH MY GOD HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I KEEL MYSELF
….but that’s not the way to bet.
Still, based on my experience with women, I believe this study has touched on a truth about women that would be more brightly illuminated with better methodology.
In the research paper, she speculates that women with the higher index finger to ring finger ration are likely to be ‘more feminized’ and more highly sought after by males.
Because they know they have a lot of options, ‘this might be associated with dissatisfaction with current partners’ and this might lead to flings – or as the scientists call it ‘opportunistic mating’ and ‘impulsive’ mating with men who are not their husband or partner.
The two main strategies in sex are ‘opportunistic mating’ – in other words having lots of flings – and a strategy ‘focusing on long-term commitment’.
She writes that ‘If females with more feminised morphology [body shape] have higher ‘mate value’,
SMV: sexual market value.
The Chateau isn’t an outpost of the world; the world is an outpost of the Chateau.
this might be associated with dissatisfaction with current partners, leading to impulsive extra-pair matings and seeking alternative mates.’
Finger length ratio is a well-tread topic at the Chateau. There has been debate whether masculinized or feminine women are more likely to cheat (proponents of the former reasoning that women with high T are hornier and thus cheat risks), but this study says more feminine women are the cheat risks, which validates a classic Chateau pearl necklace of wisdom:
The researchers also looked at the ratio of index finger to ring finger lengths in males, but did not find any connection with relationship quality.
FYI, there is very little discrepancy between the finger ratios of gay and straight men. If anything, gay men have slightly more “masculine” ratios.
That last bit about the dearth of evidence for a digit ratio-to-relationship quality correlation in men is very telling. It indirectly supports my observation that women make holistic assessments of male mate quality, seeking out a panoply of hsmv traits in men, some of which contradict each other. As such, the playing field is open to men of varying masculinity and femininity — think on, for example, how common it is to see brooding artist soyboys and musclehead jocks with cute girls — and how that might manifest biologically in a natural selection process that neither favors nor disfavors for long high 2D:4D men over low 2D:4D men.
It’s interesting to speculate on the existence of Darwinian balances that keep lower digit ratio men in the game, and further to speculate that this is the reason why there isn’t a connection between a man’s digit ratio and his relationship quality.
That connection is easier to see when looking directly at the source of a man’s happiness: his woman’s beauty, or lack thereof. Forget male finger ratios; if you want to know if a man is satisfied in his relationship, just ask yourself if you would eagerly fuck his girlfriend or wife. If yes, he’s happy.
