Physically stronger Norwegian men are more likely to be married | Hacker News Reader

Physically stronger Norwegian men are more likely to be married

sciencedirect.com

47 pointssndean21 comments

Physical strength can lead to so many things. For example, building muscles release more testosterone and this can change a sense of well being and confidence, boons known to make it more likely to form relationships since the stone age? There's also the pure visuals. Then also strength due to an active, healthy lifestyle, indicators of someone who's got things straight in life. Really, this can be about so many things that I think it is near useless as a study. You don't know what it's about and what it isn't about.

Wow, big news. This is like saying that women with larger breasts get more messages on Tinder.

It's not exactly the same because in your example the causal relationship is pretty clear: women don't get larger breasts because they get more messages on Tinder.

In this study it's not obvious if men become strong because they are married, or they are married because they were strong.

Or a confounding variable: high achieving men work hard in the gym and in their relationships.

I would imagine that “stronger” men may tend to lifestyle habits (intentionally or unintentionally) that promote their desireability thus maintaining more marriage.

Stronger men from a small town perspective is usually more desirable because of the physical demands of the farming/mining/milling culture.

File this under the no shit category

Marriage != Relationship != Sex.

To me this sounds like they are more likely to commit (possibly by being more desirable specifically for marriage), which is something I find interesting and would like an explanation for.

Maybe higher overall desirability encourages their partners to try to retain them?

Or, maybe, people who are married are, for that reason, more likely to engage in activities that improve/maintain grip strength.

Or people who are more likely to commit to long term exercise plans are also more likely to commit to long term relationships? Like, maybe it's a discipline thing. Are people with advanced degrees and skills that take discipline to maintain also more likely to be married?

I hope people aren't upvoting this study because it fits a certain narrative in their head - because the study explicitly states that it is not able, or looking, to determine a causal relationship between grip strength and marriage.

I am wondering what is the narrative you are preemptively countering and why is it important to disrupt that narrative?

The reason I'm posing this broadly is that there are a broad range of evolutionary psychology, incel, and PUA beliefs that subscribe to the view that a stronger partner is one that is deterministically more attractive to women. This paper doesn't support those views.

I can't think of many other reasons why this article would be upvoted. It focuses on a vanishingly small population of a certain age range in one part of the world. The conclusion I'm coming up with is that men born between 1923 and 1948 in Tromso, Norway who are married are more likely to have a higher grip strength than unmarried men.

Good point, it makes me think any causal effect could easily be in the reverse direction, that married men are more likely required to exercise. This observation does not explicitly assess pre-marriage fitness. It does not do a before and after marriage on a cohort.

How many generalizations about human behavior whatsoever do you think are "deterministically" true? How many as robust statistical tendencies?

This paper doesn't claim to make generalizations about human behavior in either case. Why do you feel my view on that dichotomy is important in relation to this paper?

> The reason I'm posing this broadly is that there are a broad range of evolutionary psychology, incel, and PUA beliefs that subscribe to the view that a stronger partner is one that is deterministically more attractive to women.

But shouldn't, from the PUA, etc., viewpoint, that lead to lower rates of marriage, since more desirable men should have less need to offer commitment to secure sex?

That only holds if desirable men prefer to not be married.

Also, being married doesn't prevent a man from having sex outside of marriage.

Who cares about any narrative- we are all just rocket-fuuels burned in the great hedonistic western rocket engine- for progress and the delusion of happiness.

Narratives are for those who have to calm the fuels sloshing around in the tanks - and yes, there is no real alternative to this. There is no need to protect any narrative- just point at japan, which does not take on new rocket fuel and thus will crash and burn.

From a individuals perspective ignoring the narrative- the social contraption you build and protect is a monstrosity. I m sure it makes perfect sense, if you want humanity to go somewhere, before everything falls apart due to resource starvation and long term environment damage.

It seems like your head is filled with narratives of reality denial just because some groups of people who you dislike for whatever reasons have beliefs supported by this study.

What beliefs do you think are supported by this study?

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