Warrior instinct makes men more likely to console rivals - women don't

From today's The Times.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/warrior-instinct-makes-men-more-likely-to-console-rivals-37drl0g8w

In the 2005 Ashes Test at Edgbaston, England won one of the tensest matches in cricket history by two runs. Moments after the last wicket fell Andrew Flintoff consoled the Australian batsman Brett Lee.

In 1970 at the World Cup in Mexico, England and Brazil met for an epic struggle. After Brazil won 1-0, Pelé exchanged shirts with Bobby Moore.

Would these acts of sportsmanship have occurred if the participants had been women? A new study suggests not. Scientists have found that while men are likely to hug, console and reaffirm a friendship after sporting contests, women are more likely to make do with a swift handshake.

The research, published in the journal Current Biology, found that in the tennis matches observed by scientists men were almost three times as likely to have physical contact beyond a handshake. A third of men’s table tennis matches ended with some form of hug, compared with none of the matches between women. The result was replicated in boxing, despite overt aggression being common before bouts.

The results fitted with what evolutionary psychologists refer to as the “male-warrior hypothesis”. This is the idea that ancestral cavemen retained good relationships with unrelated competitors because they might eventually have to work together to deal with outside threats.

“We believe that human social structure resembles that of chimpanzees, in which males cooperate in groups of unrelated same-sex peers and females cooperate more with family members and one or two good friends who act as family,” Joyce Benenson, from Harvard University, said.

There is also this previous study from 2014 by the same author. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24845881

Following recall of a conflict involving direct aggression and role-playing a reaction to it, compared with men, women reported their anger would dissipate less quickly and they would take longer to reconcile. Women also exhibited increased heart rate, but little change in cortisol, whereas men exhibited little change in heart rate but increased cortisol production. We interpret the results as indicating that women are less prepared than men to resolve a conflict with a same-sex peer.