Wonder why guys become such show-offs when women are around? They can’t help it! As soon as a man spies an attractive female, his body churns out more testosterone than usual, which makes him more confident and willing to take dangerous risks. That’s the news from researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland who studied male skateboarders and discovered that they performed more daring maneuvers when observed by a female researcher than when observed by a male one. To find out why, the researchers tested the skaters’s saliva and found higher levels of testosterone in the saliva of men being observed by the women. Biologically, this makes perfect sense, says study co-author Bill von Hippel, Ph.D., since men need to compete with other males for access to fertile women, plus it shows women how healthy and stong they are, advertising themselves as better potential mates.
[photo: albany_tim]
