DENNIS O'BRIEN / Baltimore Sun | Posted: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 7:00 pm
What does your body say about you? A lot, it turns out.
For example, extend your hand and compare the length of your ring and index fingers. For most women they’re about the same length, and for most men, the ring finger is a bit longer.
The longer your ring finger is compared with your index finger, the more likely you are to be aggressive, athletic and prone to depression, researchers say.
Now measure the smallest finger on each hand. If they match up, you may be close to symmetrical, which is good news if you’re looking for a mate. If you’re not symmetrical, you may have trouble getting a date.
OK, this isn’t an exact science. But some researchers believe that body symmetry and the relative lengths of our ring and index fingers are influenced by our exposure to testosterone in the womb.
That exposure, they say, also influences a variety of personal traits.
So for the past decade scientists have been measuring and comparing hands, feet, ears, limbs, joints and other body parts to see whether they provided clues to personality and behavior.
“They’re an amazing kind of subtle, yet salient, cue in our development,” said Randy J. Nelson, a psychology professor at Ohio State University.
Over the years, the field has generated more than 170 scientific papers identifying links, in one form or another, to athletic ability, aggressive behavior and proclivities for early heart attacks, depression and even sexual preference.
“Those with symmetrical attributes are more likely to be athletic, have lower metabolic rates, be more competitive and have higher IQs,” said Gordon Gallup, a psychology professor and researcher at the State University of New York, Albany.
Some critics dismiss the field as something close to junk science.
“I’ve always distrusted all of this, from the beginning,” said Richard Palmer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Alberta. “I don’t think it’s a reliable indicator of anything.”
Research into finger length was initiated in the late 1990s by John T. Manning, a British researcher who was intrigued by the finding that finger length ratios are one of the few differences between the sexes that develop in the womb and are unaffected by puberty. Finger length ratios remain constant throughout our lives.
Among the most consistent results are studies that link finger length to athletic abilities, Manning said. A recent report by researchers at King’s College in London, which linked running ability to longer ring finger ratios in women, was one of seven studies in recent years to make such a connection, he said.
Researchers say that body symmetry has implications throughout the animal kingdom. Birds, rodents and other animals show a preference for symmetrical mates.
“If you can band the legs of birds with different colored bands, they will always choose the ones banded symmetrically,” said Robert Trivers, a researcher at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., who has been studying symmetry and behavioral traits in 288 Jamaican children since 1996.
Humans appear to function the same way with faces that are symmetrical. The same is true in men’s preference for women, Trivers said.
For body symmetry, researchers use calipers that measure limbs and joints in millimeters.
But individuals can tell whether they’re generally symmetrical by comparing the lengths of the little finger of each hand, Gallup said.
Most people have imperfections that throw them off their symmetry a bit — and that can actually make them more attractive in an offbeat way, experts say.
Brad Pitt comes close to being perfectly symmetrical, experts say. But actor Owen Wilson is an example of a man with an asymmetrical face that seems to work well.
“Very few people are perfectly symmetrical. It’s usually the people who are really attractive,” Nelson said.