RecSciPod S01E22 full transcript
Timestamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 1:34 Tirth’s “not” bachelor party
- 8:37 Stripper study
- 20:51 Testosterone study
- 31:13 What did you learn today, outro
Intro
Lu: Welcome everybody to another episode of Recreational Science, the podcast where we explore creativity in science by examining some of the funniest, wackiest, and most provocative studies ever done. I’m Lu.
Tirth: And I’m Tirth. Listeners, imagine if you will, there’s a vast, barren, complicated desert. We shall call this desert the desert of knowledge. You want to traverse this, but you don’t know where to go. Fear not, Lu and I got you on our magic carpet that we call this podcast.
Lu: Whoa. So we’re like Aladdin?
Tirth: We’re like Aladdin. That’s right.
Lu: Interesting. Well, I’m like Aladdin. You’re the monkey, Abu, is that right?
Tirth: No, can I be the parrot? Can I be the parrot?
Lu: Uh, the parrot’s a bad guy.
Tirth: Exactly.
Lu: The parrot is like the worst of them. He’s like the worst guy.
Tirth: We all need a parrot in our life. I’ve never, as you know, I’ve never watched Aladdin.
Lu: That’s right. We’ve been over this.
Tirth: Yeah. He seemed entertaining.
Lu: But it’s interesting you say we’re guides for our audience in the desert of knowledge, because we don’t have any. Is that right? We’re like a desert when it comes to knowledge.
Tirth: You know, now that I think about it, you know what I should have said? The oasis of knowledge.
Lu: Oh, that would have made a lot more sense. We’re the oasis.
Tirth: Right. We’re taking them to the oasis of knowledge on our magic carpet.
Lu: They’re stuck in the desert of misinformation.
Tirth: Yes. That’s right. That’s even better.
Lu: Very good.
Tirth: Teamwork makes the dream work.
Lu: That’s right.
Tirth’s “not” bachelor party
Lu: Hey Tirth, last week, we had a party for you, in Las Vegas.
Tirth: We did.
Lu: What was it for?
Tirth: It was my “not” bachelor party.
Lu: That’s right.
Tirth: It was just a weekend. It was just a regular weekend. Just guys hanging out.
Lu: Why do you call it your “not” bachelor party?
Tirth: Cause I don’t like labels. You know me. I’m a humble man.
Lu: But you are getting married.
Tirth: Oh, definitely. Most definitely.
Lu: It’s going to be a real wedding.
Tirth: 100%.
Lu: Or you’re going to call it your “not” wedding?
Tirth: Possibly.
Lu: Because it’s all been a lie. You’ve never had a fiancée.
Tirth: No, no.
Lu: Just as I suspected all along, and I’m pretty sure our listeners will agree, the fiancée does not exist.
Tirth: No, many of our listeners have met…They know she exists. She exists.
Lu: Anyways, you’re “not” bachelor party, as you call it, for some reason… Did you have fun?
Tirth: I had a great time. Blast. An absolute blast. One of the best experiences of my life.
Lu: What’s your favorite part? Can we say? Can we share? Can we share this experience with the audience?
Tirth: Absolutely. This is a safe space. I know I’m not embarrassed of anything. I do not regret a single thing that happened this weekend. So, yes.
Lu: Oh, very good.
Tirth: I’m not afraid.
Lu: Glad you have come to terms with the things that happened.
Tirth: There’s nothing to come to terms with. I’m very, very open. I’m a very comfortable guy, you know, comfortable in my own personality.
Lu: Well, I’m glad you had fun. It was a good party. Very fun party. Fifteen of your bestest buddies showed up.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: And actually, you invited more.
Tirth: A few more.
Lu: Twenty people, I think you invited.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Which, by the way, is a ridiculous number of your closest friends.
Tirth: I’m a popular man. What can I say?
Lu: You know what having 20 closest friends is like?
Tirth: What is it like?
Lu: It’s like going to a restaurant that has a really big menu. You ever done this?
Tirth: The Cheesecake Factory.
Lu: Yeah. You go to a restaurant and the menu is like a hundred items long. Right?
Tirth: It’s a novel.
Lu: How confident are you that they actually know how to cook everything? You see what I’m saying?
Tirth: Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what – I am very confident. The Cheesecake Factory, the best restaurant in America.
Lu: Oh, is it better than Sizzler?
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: Wow. Better than Chili’s?
Tirth: Better than Chili’s. Yeah. Not even close.
Lu: Wow.
Tirth: Chili’s is hot garbage, man.
Lu: So what you’re saying is, you know the menu at Cheesecake Factory as well as you know all 20 people that were invited to your bachelor party.
Tirth: One can say that. Not my intent, but one can say that, yes. And you know, unless people think it’s an insult, no, it’s an honor to be compared to the menu at the Cheesecake Factory.
Lu: I see. Okay. So like I said, your bestest buddies showed up, right? Saran.
Tirth: Saran was there. We’ve had him on our pod before.
Lu: Popular guest on our pod, let’s say. Who else? Jimmy,
Tirth: Jimmy was there.
Lu: Mario,
Tirth: Mario.
Lu: Lorenzo, Seizman, Chad,
Tirth: Who’s Chad?
Lu: Kashyap Patel. Kashyap Patel, we call him Kash.
Tirth: Who’s Chad? Time out, time out, time out.
Lu: Chad, you don’t remember Chad? Chad, he was awesome.
Tirth: I don’t remember Chad.
Lu: Dan the Man was there.
Tirth: Dan the Man.
Lu: He was really cool. Wiggles, Bozo, of course, your favorite. Zippy from your clown days, your friends.
Tirth: That’s right.
Lu: Ed the Squid, right?
Tirth: He was fun.
Lu: Yeah, he was there.
Tirth: He was the life of the party at that time.
Lu: He really was. Ed the Squid
Tirth Ed Squid.
Lu: Yeah. We know how he got his nickname, don’t we? But we can’t say it on air.
Tirth: We don’t need to. We can’t say it on air.
Lu: We can’t say it on air. No, no, no, no, no. Woody was there, our buddy Woody.
Tirth: We also don’t need to talk about how he got his name.
Lu: We don’t need to talk about it, but it’s pretty clear.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Bobsled, great guy.
Tirth: That’s right.
Lu: First time meeting Bobsled.
Tirth: He’s a great guy.
Lu: Yeah. One of my favorites.
Tirth: I’m glad you liked him, man.
Lu: How did you meet him? How did you meet Bobsled?
Tirth: I was sledding. Yeah, he’s a regular. He’s a regular bobsledder at the sled place. So they called him Bobsled, the bobsled guy.
Lu: Oh, very good. Very good. Who else are we missing? Is that 15?
Tirth: I think that’s 15.
Lu: Tedward. Tedward was there.
Tirth: Oh, Tedward. How can I forget him? Oh, classic. Teddy.
Lu: Paid for a lot of drinks.
Tirth: He did.
Lu: Very good guy. Big fan.
Tirth: Got himself into a bit of a bind, but it was fine afterwards. He got out of it. He got out of it.
Lu: He was okay. He’s fine now. And then Todd. Todd was there.
Tirth: Todd, yeah.
Lu: Good guy. Very good guy.
Tirth: My brother-in-law, Todd.
Lu: Yeah. Good list of people.
Tirth: Solid dudes. You can go to war with these guys, you know?
Lu: Absolutely. Absolutely. We did a lot of crazy stuff, right?
Tirth: A lot of crazy stuff. What was your favorite part?
Lu: Probably watching you lose a bunch of money. Thousands of dollars. How much was it? Thousands?
Tirth: No, no. It was not thousands. Hey, you know what my favorite part was? The big, the giant room I was in.
Lu: Oh, yeah. You got the master suite with the wraparound balcony.
Tirth: Balcony. Two bathrooms. Clutch.
Lu: That’s very clutch. Very clutch. One of them was immediately out of commission.
Tirth: Yeah. You needed hazard, pile of hazard tape on it.
Lu: That was thanks to Dan the Man.
Tirth: Yeah, Dan the Man.
Lu: That was definitely Dan the Man. Needless to say.
Tirth: I think he’s on the banned list at the Cosmo now.
Lu: But you know what we didn’t do, since it wasn’t your bachelor party. We didn’t go to a strip club. Is that correct?
Tirth: No, no, definitely not. Yeah.
Lu: Definitely not. Does your fiancée listen to this?
Tirth: She does.
Lu: Okay. Yeah. We definitely didn’t go to a strip club.
Tirth: 100% we did not.
Lu: Good. Good. Good. I’m glad. I’m glad you agree.
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: Other things we didn’t do: We didn’t drink, right? No alcohol?
Tirth: No. No alcohol.
Lu: There was no nudity whatsoever, is that right?
Tirth: No.
Lu: No cocaine.
Tirth: No. We just sat in a circle and held hands.
Lu: Exactly. Yeah. There was no smoochy woochy poochy.
Tirth: No. And then Bobsled, acted like a bobsled and gave people rides on his back.
Lu: He did. He definitely did that. No one spent $1,000 on Pringles caviar because they thought it’d be funny. No one did that.
Tirth: Nobody would do that. That’s so irresponsible.
Lu: Other things that didn’t happen: No one drank too much sake at dinner, and then challenged everyone to arm wrestling, and broke their arm.
Tirth: And they almost broke the table. Nobody did that.
Lu: Broke the table, broke their arm and then had to leave early.
Tirth: And got banned from that hotel too. Yes. Yes.
Lu: No one did that. No one chugged an entire bottle of fine scotch at a concert.
Tirth: Who would do that? That’s insane.
Lu: Passed out a blackjack table.
Tirth: Insane.
Lu: Got escorted out by security. Got into a fight with a nightclub bouncer.
Tirth: Also got into a fight with a potted plant thinking it was a person.
Lu: That’s right. That’s right.
Tirth: But of course, nobody did that.
Lu: Nobody did that. And he definitely did not have to be rescued by Lorenzo, who carried him on his shoulders back to the hotel.
Tirth: No, no, no. Why would that be the case?
Lu: No, no. Even if it did, there wouldn’t be any photographic evidence. There’s no footage.
Tirth: There’s no footage.
Lu: No one went into a ramen restaurant called Hot Noods thinking it was a strip club.
Tirth: No. Who would do that?
Lu: Only to get into a fight with hostess and then challenge the hostess to a push up contest. Had to do 30 push ups to beat the hostess, but could only muster an embarrassing 25.
Tirth: Weakness.
Lu: No one did that. Is that right?
Tirth: That’s weak. Yeah.
Lu: Yeah. No one did that. And if someone did, surely there won’t be any videographic evidence. Is that correct?
Tirth: That’s correct. A sign of weakness. Who would do that?
Lu: Exactly. Exactly. None of that stuff happened.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: It was a jolly good old time.
Tirth: Great time.
Lu: Very pristine.
Tirth: Very polite.
Lu: Very polite.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Weekend in Vegas.
Tirth: That’s right.
Stripper study
Lu: As we’ve discussed, and you’re adamant about this, we did not go to a strip club. Is that correct?
Tirth: No, no, definitely not. That’s right.
Lu: Very good. So while we were sitting there, all in a circle…
Tirth: Holding hands.
Lu: Holding hands. There’s, you know, live music, flashing lights, I was – I had my head down because I don’t objectify women. Do you agree?
Tirth: I agree. Yes. Neither do I. But yeah, neither one of us.
Lu: Oh?
Tirth: Yeah
Lu: Is this a new development for you?
Tirth: No, it’s not new. It’s always been the case, you know, it is.
Lu: Well, in med school, though, in med school…
Tirth: No…
Lu: You used to wear this T-shirt in med school that said…
Tirth: FBI?
Lu: FBI, Female Body Inspector. You remember this?
Tirth: I thought it was just, no, no, I thought it was reverse psychology. You know, it’s like you make a joke about something because you believe in the opposite so much, you know, you’re signaling that, hey, it’s very safe. I’m very…
Lu: I see. Well, you wore this shirt like every day. You had like five of these shirts, right?
Tirth: That’s right. I was like Steve Jobs. There’s just one wardrobe.
Lu: Five different colors, though. One color for each color that woman came in is what you would say. Do I have that right?
Tirth: I almost forgot. But yes, thank you for the reminder. Yes.
Lu: And you wore this shirt on your OB-GYN rotation one time.
Tirth: I did. I did. Under my scrubs.
Lu: What happened?
Tirth: Well, I was sent home early, unfortunately.
Lu: Someone puked on your scrubs and you had to take off the top.
Tirth: I had to go take it off. And then I went home and I changed and came back.
Lu: Revealing the shirt.
Tirth: Yeah. Yeah. I was sent to meet with the Dean of Students or whatever they were called.
Lu: Dean Moscoso, while you’re still wearing the shirt.
Tirth: They needed evidence. It’s like a crime scene. You know, they’re like, you can’t alter the crime scene.
Lu: FBI, Female Body Inspector to Dean Moscoso. Who is a woman.
Tirth: Yes. Oh, yeah. But I mean, I don’t know what relevance that has on this, but I tried explaining to her, you know, that this is like postmodern humor, post-postmodern humor.
Lu: Oh, I see.
Tirth: I mean, you get it. You get it. You have a great sense of humor.
Lu: I do. Well, thank you.
Tirth: Yes. Very refined, right?
Lu: Refined. Yes. Like I was saying, I don’t objectify women.
Tirth: No, but you appreciate the humor. Sadly, the administration didn’t.
Lu: They made you stop wearing those shirts.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Very sad. But now you gave them to your dad, right? Now he wears them. He loves them.
Tirth: He does, when he’s doing yard work.
Lu: He loves them.
Tirth: Walking up and down the neighborhood, getting the mail, you know.
Lu: FBI, female body inspector.
Tirth: When he goes to Costco.
Lu: Yeah. That’s right. Anyways, while we were all sitting there, I had my head down. I was thinking about science Tirth. Again, because I don’t objectify women.
Tirth: In the middle of all that, you have bandwidth for science?
Lu: Specifically, I was thinking about, what are the different factors that contribute to how much money a stripper makes? What are all the different factors?
Tirth: Wait a minute. Isn’t that objectifying women?
Lu: No, no, no, no.
Tirth: You’re literally putting a number on them.
Lu: Please. For the sake of science, Tirth.
Tirth: For the sake of science. Of course. Yes.
Lu: So what do you think?
Tirth: What are the factors?
Lu: Yeah. I want to hear your opinion.
Tirth: Yeah. Okay. Before I give you my opinion, let’s make it clear one more time: we did not go to a strip club.
Lu: No, no, no, no, no. Definitely not.
Tirth: I don’t have experience with strip clubs.
Lu: I’ve never been to a strip club in my life.
Tirth: I do have experience with humanity. And based on that experience alone, I would say some of the factors that come to mind are attractiveness.
Lu: Yeah, I agree.
Tirth: I think the location of the strip club matters.
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: Like what type of city are you in? What part of the city you’re in?
Lu: So like what type of clientele you’re getting?
Tirth: Yeah. And I mean, age, so you know, let’s just say appearance, so that includes age and attractiveness and stuff like that. What else? Time of the day, I think, matters.
Lu: Presumably better later. Yeah.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: Dance moves, probably.
Tirth: Oh, yeah. That’s right. That’s right.
Lu: You know about the dance moves.
Tirth: I’ve heard of them. I don’t know about them. I’ve heard of them. So yeah, I think those are a good number of variables.
Lu: So last episode, we talked about how chimps’ ovulatory cycle can be observed by male chimps.
Tirth: Yeah, by looking at the butts.
Lu: So what do you think?
Tirth: Oh no.
Lu: Does the female stripper ovulatory cycle affect how much money they make?
Tirth: Oh my. Oh, no. I would say yes.
Lu: Oh, you think so?
Tirth: Just by the direction and how this is going.
Lu: Yes. Very good detective, Tirth.
Tirth: Thank you.
Lu: So the paper that I’m presenting today asks this question. The title is, “Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?” This was published in 2007 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
Tirth: Great journal.
Lu: Very good journal. Now Tirth, we both went to med school. We both took gynecology. We both rotated on gynecology.
Tirth: Been a while, yeah.
Lu: What are the different phases of the female menstrual ovulatory cycle, Tirth?
Tirth: Oh, man. You’re putting me on the spot here, huh? There’s a luteal phase, I think.
Lu: There is a luteal phase, yeah.
Tirth: Is that one of them?
Lu: Yes. Very good.
Tirth: Basically, how about this? I think the phases…
Lu: Put it in terms men can understand.
Tirth: I think the phases are based on the levels of estrogen and progesterone.
Lu: That’s correct.
Tirth: Because there’s like a surge of progesterone, and there’s like the thickening of the lining happening, and there’s a surge, and then there’s a sloughing off of the lining happening. I think they all have names.
Lu: Yeah, yeah. So you have ovulation, which is when the eggs released, right? And then you get to the luteal phase, and then menstruation happens after that. And then you get the follicular phase.
Tirth: Yes, follicular phase. That’s right.
Lu: Yeah. So this group decided to go to a strip club.
Tirth: As one does.
Lu: As one does. Here’s my favorite part from this paper. This is quote from the paper. They said, “because academics may be unfamiliar with the gentleman’s club subculture, some background may be helpful to understand why this is an ideal setting for investigating real-world attractiveness effects of human female estrus.”
Tirth: They’re making a lot of assumptions about academics.
Lu: But as academics, we also don’t know anything about strip clubs, is that correct?
Tirth: We don’t know a lot about strip clubs, yes.
Lu: So they gave a very detailed description on strip clubs. Strip clubs serve alcohol, there’s loud music, often with a live DJ. The club often has an ATM machine.
Tirth: Is that right?
Lu: You agree?
Tirth: If they say so, if they say so.
Lu: In the strip club they went to, the dancers are topless, but not bottomless.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: And then also dancers typically wear very, very little perfume, but they often have fake breasts.
Tirth: Didn’t know that.
Lu: Yeah, they do.
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: And here’s the key part. The dancers at strip clubs, they often start dancing on the stage, where they actually don’t make that much tip. What they do after dancing on the stage is they go around the club and ask people if they want lap dances. That’s where they make most of the money.
Tirth: Got it. You know, I kind of fudged the truth earlier. You know, when I said I don’t have a lot of experience with a strip club? I meant in real world, but in video games…
Lu: GTA?
Tirth: You ever play GTA? GTA 5? GTA 4?
Lu: Ah, I see. So you know all this. You’re very familiar with all this.
Tirth: In video games. I didn’t know that’s how the real world was. But now I know.
Lu: Does your fiancée, is she going to listen to this episode?
Tirth: Oh, yeah. Oh, she’s a big fan. Big fan.
Lu: Good, good. So that’s where most of the tip comes from. And then actually, the best way to make money is to give lap dances in the VIP area to like a really rich VIP.
Tirth: I see.
Lu: For like your entire shift. That’s the number one way to make money.
Tirth: So everybody, all of them are trying to get into that sort of thing.
Lu: Exactly. So they’re sort of competing with each other to land like the biggest, richest VIP.
Tirth: Right, right. Every night.
Lu: Yeah. So because of this, like, highly competitive nature, maybe even a tiny bit of attractiveness matters.
Tirth: Yeah. Everything gives you an edge.
Lu: Exactly. All right. The article then also gives a very detailed description of what happens during a lap dance. I’ll leave it up to you and the listeners to go read that for yourself.
Tirth: All right. Okay. I mean, of course, just to for scientific and…
Lu: For science, of course, this is all for science. They asked 18 professional lap dancers working in Gentleman’s Clubs in Albuquerque to record their menstrual cycle and their tip earnings for a total of 60 days. They ended up recording 296 five-hour shifts which totaled over 5,000 lap dances.
Tirth: So okay, let’s break that down. 18 lap dancers, 60 days, and 296 shifts. Total of 5,000 lap dances.
Lu: Over 5,000.
Tirth: Wow. Okay. That’s a lot of lap dances.
Lu: 11 of the 18 dancers were not on contraceptives.
Tirth: Birth control.
Lu: Birth control. Exactly. For them, during the menstrual phase, they earned on average $185 per shift, which comes out to about $35 an hour.
Tirth: Pretty good.
Lu: So not bad. For the luteal phase, they made $260 per shift. $50 an hour. That’s quite good.
Tirth: A lot better.
Lu: For the ovulatory phase, what do you think? How much do they make per hour?
Tirth: I’m going to say $75 an hour.
Lu: Very close. $70 an hour. More than double the menstrual phase.
Tirth: That’s right. 35 to 70.
Lu: That’s pretty crazy, right? That’s a huge difference.
Tirth: That is insane. Wow.
Lu: Here’s the really interesting part. For the women who are on birth control, the seven dancers who are on birth control, they didn’t see this peak at all.
Tirth: Wow. So the earnings were flat across all three phases.
Lu: They were flat across the entire month, the entire cycle.
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: Here’s something that’s even more interesting. The average for the women who are not on the pill across the entire cycle was $53 an hour. For women who were on the pill, the average was only $37 an hour.
Tirth: That’s crazy, man.
Lu: It’s crazy, right?
Tirth: That’s pretty crazy. So I think basically it argues that if you’re a lap dancer, so to speak, you shouldn’t be on the pill, I guess.
Lu: Don’t be on the pill. Gotta ovulate.
Tirth: Gotta ovulate. 5,000 samples. That’s a lot though, right?
Lu: So what do you think? Why do you think this is?
Tirth: I think they’re signaling that they’re fertile, right?
Lu: But why, how did they get the men to tip more? Or how did they land the like the big whale, the rich VIP more?
Tirth: Maybe there’s a glow on their face. I don’t know. You know how they say when women are pregnant, they have a glow? They have a glow, right?
Lu: So you think the men are picking up on like subtle changes in attractiveness?
Tirth: Right, exactly. And it’s not even a conscious thing, right? It must be like whatever happening, it must be so quick, right?
Lu: Yeah, I think that’s a big part of it. Another alternative explanation, I think, could be that the dancers, maybe their behaviors are different. Their dance movements were different.
Tirth: Because they themselves know that this is happening, right?
Lu: Well, not necessarily. They didn’t know what the study was about. But you know, when they’re ovulating, they have different hormones flowing. And there’s different changes happening. Their behavior is a little different.
Tirth: That’s true.
Lu: That could be part of it as well.
Tirth: Yeah. Hey, do they say how much did they tip, the authors?
Lu: Oh, the authors? No, they did not disclose. They did not disclose that information.
Tirth: I see. Okay.
Lu: I have a suggestion for a future study.
Tirth: Yeah, go ahead.
Lu: I think they should turn this on its head. Go to a male strip club and see if the stages of the cycle of the women patrons affect tipping of the men or not. Affect how much they tip.
Tirth: Oh, that would be sick. Don’t discriminate.
Lu: Yeah. If they were to do that, here’s an ethical question. Would it be wrong for the bouncer to ask the women trying to go in what stage of the cycle they’re on?
Tirth: Because yeah, as a club as a whole, they want the…
Lu: Biggest payers.
Tirth: Yeah. Or they could just be like, are you on the pill or not? You don’t even need to ask the stage, right?
Lu: That’s a good point. Yeah. If you’re on the pill, don’t bother coming in.
Tirth: Don’t bother coming in. Yeah. Start advertising all over the city. See how well that goes.
Lu: Yeah.
Tirth: Oh man.
Lu: All right. That’s all I got for you Tirth.
Tirth: All right. That was a great study. That was a very good study. I’m a fan.
Lu: Good. What do you got for me?
Testosterone study
Tirth: Lu, on this podcast, would you agree that in addition to informing our audience about science, we also, from time to time, like to give them very good life advice, right?
Lu: Oh, very good. The best life advice.
Tirth: For example, on dating, multiple episodes on mansplaining, manspreading.
Lu: Absolutely.
Tirth: I think we’re looking out for our listeners.
Lu: We are.
Tirth: Particularly, the men, the young men.
Lu: Yeah.
Tirth: Because as you and I agree, men are stupid, right? Aren’t we?
Lu: Oh, absolutely. The dumbest.
Tirth: The dumbest. Dumbest.
Lu: We do dumb stuff. Very dumb stuff.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: Some of the things we might have mentioned in prior segments of this podcast.
Tirth: Just like 10 minutes ago. Yeah.
Lu: Which definitely didn’t happen. None of that.
Tirth: None of that happened. None of that happened.
Lu: But pretty dumb. Pretty dumb.
Tirth: Yeah. Very dumb. What greater evidence do you need, right?
Lu: Yeah.
Tirth: Well, let me ask you this: what’s the one thing that’s common, the one common denominator in all of these behaviors, in all the stuff that we’ve talked about pertaining to men?
Lu: What’s the common factor across all of the stupid behaviors we’ve mentioned on this pod?
Tirth: Or, yeah, just even normal man. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Can you think of one?
Lu: The Y chromosome?
Tirth: Very good. Okay. And what does that lead to? Think about hormones.
Lu: That leads to, oh, androgens? Testosterone?
Tirth: Yeah, testosterone. Exactly, right? Yes, there is all this literature, all this work out there saying testosterone makes men more aggressive, makes them do all these crazy things, makes them go crazy.
Lu: Yeah, right.
Tirth: It’s like a surge of testosterone, right? Also a lot of aggression and violence.
Lu: Oh, I see. It takes over your frontal lobe. The cognitive parts of your brain stop working.
Tirth: Right, exactly.
Lu: Overridden by testosterone.
Tirth: That’s a good way to put it. So the study today asks the question, does the perception of aggression or even like being around things that may make men think of violence or threats, does just the mere feeling of that, does that cause an increase of testosterone? And if so, does that make men be even more aggressive to men they don’t even know?
Lu: I see.
Tirth: The title of my study today is – you’re gonna love this title – “Guns, Testosterone and Aggression: An experimental test of a mediational hypothesis.”
Lu: Okay, and it’s directional. Guns lead to testosterone, leads to aggression.
Tirth: That’s the hypothesis here, okay? This was published in the year 2006 in the journal Psychological Science.
Lu: Very good journal.
Tirth: Excellent journal. And we’ve talked about this on this podcast, right? That psychologists make the best scientists.
Lu: Absolutely.
Tirth: So, the setup, you know, the question they’re asking themselves is, well, we know that testosterone can cause aggression. Men can behave erratically, more violently. And there’s also indirect evidence that just the perception that there’s a threat nearby can cause testosterone levels to spike. So, they said, can we test this in a controlled setting? Specifically, can we use guns as a means to provoke, to depict threat and thereby provoke a rise in testosterone?
Lu: Which would make sense, right? Because I guess the idea evolutionarily is if you’re, if you feel threatened…
Tirth: There’s a weapon or there’s a threat.
Lu: Yeah, if you feel threatened, you want to, you know, get into the flight or fight response?
Tirth: Yeah, flight or fight mode. You get these heightened senses, right?
Lu: Maybe testosterone starts to flow…
Tirth: So the setup is they recruited 30 college students between the age of 18 and 22. They’re all men. They split them into two groups. One group gets a fake gun, but it looks very much like a real gun. It’s a Desert Eagle if you care about this. It’s a big gun. And the other group, they get a children’s toy, namely the mousetrap game.
Lu: Oh, okay.
Tirth: And they were told just like, you know, they didn’t want to reveal the true nature of the study. They were told that this is a study of taste sensitivity.
Lu: Taste?
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: And it’s connection to deep thinking about intricate steps. So like executive function thinking. And the way they were conned is they had these guys come in, all of them, right before the experiment began, they were asked to, and it says, it actually says by a female experimenter, they were asked to spit in a cup. So they collected their saliva. They measured the baseline testosterone level. Then the group was given a task, the group that got the gun and the group that got the mousetrap. They were both given a task saying, this is an object, you can play with it, you can touch it, you can hold it in your hand.
Lu: Meaning referring to the gun or the mousetrap game.
Tirth: Mousetrap, yes. And we want you to write down detailed instructions on how you would disassemble and assemble this object in front of you. So that’s like the executive function.
Lu: Interesting.
Tirth: They were also given a diagram with the different parts of these objects and asked to label them. They spent 15 minutes doing this. Then they collected a second testosterone level right after finishing the test. When the 15 minutes were up, the examiner approached him and said, okay, 15 minutes are up. Now we’re moving on to the part where we’re going to study your taste sensitivity. To do that, here’s a cup of water. The subject before you, so the guy before you added some amount of hot sauce to this, Frank’s hot sauce. And we want you to drink it. And we want you to rate how spicy this is. Then they said, now we want you to make up, here’s a glass of water, here’s a bottle of Frank’s hot sauce. Add as much hot sauce into this glass of water as you want. And the subject after you, meaning the guy after you, will be made to drink this.
Lu: I see. Okay. I’m guessing that’s how they measured aggression.
Tirth: Exactly. There you go. That’s the measure of aggression right there. How much hot sauce are you adding?
Lu: And they’re thinking if the guys are really hormoned up with testosterone, they’re going to add more hot sauce.
Tirth: They’re just going to dump the bottle in the water.
Lu: Wow. Very, very clever. Very genius.
Tirth: Genius, right?
Lu: Genius way to test aggression.
Tirth: But not just that. These experimenters are actually very considerate. Here’s what they say in the paper, okay? “Because of the potentially arousing nature of the experiment, we wanted to ensure that all subjects were reasonably calm when they left the lab. Therefore, all subjects watched a relaxing video of nature scenes and classical music.”
Lu: Very good.
Tirth: Then they were debriefed and they were told that you were deceived and they emphasized they should not feel badly about any aggressive behavior they may have exhibited.
Lu: Good.
Tirth: Interestingly, though, “several subjects were disappointed when told that the sample of hot sauce and water would not actually be given to the next subject.”
Lu: I see. Okay, okay.
Tirth: Boys will be boys, man.
Lu: Very good.
Tirth: So then, they added up all…
Lu: How many, what percent of the participants were disappointed?
Tirth: It doesn’t say. Sadly, it doesn’t say.
Lu: They should have used that as a measure of aggression.
Tirth: They should have.
Lu: Oh, okay. That’s okay.
Tirth: So, then, they measured up, they looked at the testosterone levels at baseline, testosterone after the task,
Lu: After playing with the gun or the…
Tirth: Or the mousetrap. So, here are the numbers. The hypothesis, of course, as we’ve mentioned, is the guys who are playing with the gun will be more aggressive.
Lu: Which is interesting. I don’t know if I would have had the hypothesis, because I was thinking, like, if they were threatened with a gun, their testosterone levels would go up. But they’re the ones playing with the gun themselves.
Tirth: Yeah, it’s just the fact that there’s a gun there and they’re handling it.
Lu: And it’s fake, and they know it’s fake.
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: So they’re not threatened by it.
Tirth: No, no. It’s just the perception of aggression or threat. Like a vague perception, you know?
Lu: I see. Or maybe they feel powerful when they hold the gun in their hands.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: And that’s why they’re being more aggressive after that. I see.
Tirth: Okay, but here are the differences, okay? In the group that handled the gun, the difference in the testosterone level before they handled the gun and after the gun was 62 picograms/ml. So it rose by 62 picograms/ml.
Lu: Okay. And what’s that in percent?
Tirth: It’s unclear because they actually combine all the means.
Lu: Oh, okay.
Tirth: I think they’re just comparing it to the guys who only handled the mousetrap, in whom the rise was only 0.68 picograms. So it’s all relative increase compared to the guys who only handled the mousetrap. Their testosterone level shot up by like 100 times, basically.
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: Second, you know, the second hypothesis was, well, is this going to make them more aggressive as measured by how much hot sauce they’re adding? Guys who handled the gun added significantly more hot sauce than guys who handled the mousetrap. So the guys who handled the gun, they added 13.6 grams of hot sauce versus 4.2 grams for the guys who handled the mousetrap.
Lu: Wow. That’s a big difference. 13.4 grams?
Tirth: 13.6 versus 4.2.
Lu: 13.6 grams. How much is that?
Tirth: I think it would be like a tablespoon, right?
Lu: A tablespoon of like Tabasco. What was the hot sauce?
Tirth: Frank’s hot sauce.
Lu: That’s pretty hot. Okay. So that would hurt a little. Interesting. Wow.
Tirth: Yeah. It’s a big difference.
Lu: Interesting. But I mean, it’s still very correlational, right?
Tirth: Everything’s correlational. Absolutely.
Lu: It’s not clear that the testosterone is actually leading to…
Tirth: No, no. I mean, this is all indirect evidence. Absolutely.
Lu: Interesting. And do the authors suggest what we should do with the men who added the most amount of hot sauce?
Tirth: No, but maybe they’re on a list. Maybe they’re on a list somewhere.
Lu: Should we put them on a list? Do we need to be concerned that these men exist? Are just out there walking around?
Tirth: Maybe they should be recruited in the army.
Lu: Especially the ones who were disappointed that no one was going to drink the hot sauce.
Tirth: Exactly. You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of the Stanford Prison Experiment, where they’re all pretending to give shocks.
Lu: Oh, that’s the other one. That’s the Stanley Milgram shock experiment.
Tirth: …where some sub-population of the students who were role-playing as guards really enjoyed giving a lot of shocks, I think.
Lu: No, I think you got two different experiments confused.
Tirth: Wait, there are two different studies?
Lu: Yeah, there’s a shock one and then there’s a prison one. The shock one is they just told them to keep giving shocks. And there’s a guy in the background screaming.
Tirth: That’s right.
Lu: And then the last level is the guy just stopped screaming because they died presumably.
Tirth: Or passed out.
Lu: And then the experimenter was still like, keep going. And then people kept going even though the guy died.
Tirth: Oh, good stuff, man.
What did you learn today
Lu: All right, good stuff. That brings us to the end of another episode of the podcast. Tirth, what did you learn today?
Tirth: What I learned today is that if you’re a researcher who, let’s say, has a certain habit, likes to frequent certain establishments, just make up a study about it. It gives you an excuse.
Lu: To go for free.
Tirth: Yeah, it’s a field expedition.
Lu: Use your funding.
Tirth: Yeah, use that NIH money, the NSF money.
Lu: How do you report tips on the reimbursement form?
Tirth: Recruitment? I don’t know. Recruitment money? I don’t know.
Lu: Very good.
Tirth: What did you learn today?
Lu: I learned that the next time I go out for hot wings, I shouldn’t bring my gun and wave at the waiter.
Tirth: That’s right. That’s very smart. That’s very smart. Hey, unless maybe you like your wing spicy.
Lu: Oh, that’s right. If I’m in the mood for spicy wings, bring a couple of guns.
Tirth: Yeah, strapped.
Lu: Very good. All right, guys, thanks for listening to our show. Really hope you enjoyed it.
Tirth: And if you like listening to us, please give us five stars, give us a good review, subscribe and tell a friend on whatever platform you listen to us on.
Lu: That’s right. All right, guys, see you on the next episode.
Tirth: Take care.
Lu: Bye.
Tirth: Bye.
