Objectives

The male warrior hypothesis suggests that men have evolved psychological mechanisms to form aggressive coalitions against members of outgroups, which may explain men’s propensity to engage in warfare, as well as team sports. We examined gender differences in skin conductivity and attitudes toward war after exposing participants to video imagery depicting sports and war from a sample of young adults from Slovakia.

Methods

We measured skin conductivity responses using electrodermal activity (EDA) when participants watched three short videos: Football, World War II, and Control. Then, implicit and explicit attitudes toward war and subjective arousal of the three videos were examined using questionnaires.

Results

Men showed higher maximal skin conductivity when watching a team sport video, compared to a control video. Skin conductivity during a war video did not significantly differ from a sport or control video. In contrast, women showed highest maximal skin conductivity when watching a war video, followed by the sport and control videos, but these differences were not statistically significant. When the videos were subjectively rated by the same participants, men rated team sports and war as similarly arousing, but ratings of these videos were not significantly different for women.

Conclusions

These results suggest that visual cues of warfare and team sports influence skin conductivity, but we did not find support for the hypothesis that sport is a substitute for war. Because this study was based exclusively on visual cues, we discuss additional possibilities that could influence future investigations.

中文翻译：

---

男性和女性对战争和运动图像的皮肤电导率反应：进化视角

目标

男性战士假说表明，男性已经进化出心理机制来形成对抗外群成员的攻击性联盟，这可能解释了男性参与战争和团队运动的倾向。在让参与者观看来自斯洛伐克的年轻人样本中描绘运动和战争的视频图像后，我们检查了皮肤导电性​​和对战争态度的性别差异。

方法

当参与者观看三个短视频：足球、二战和控制时，我们使用皮肤电活动 (EDA) 测量皮肤电导率反应。然后，使用问卷调查了对战争的内隐和外显态度以及三个视频的主观唤醒。

结果

与对照视频相比，男性在观看团队运动视频时表现出更高的最大皮肤电导率。战争视频中的皮肤电导率与运动或控制视频没有显着差异。相比之下，女性在观看战争视频时表现出最高的最大皮肤电导率，其次是运动视频和对照视频，但这些差异没有统计学意义。当视频由同一参与者主观评价时，男性认为团队运动和战争同样令人兴奋，但女性对这些视频的评价没有显着差异。

结论

这些结果表明，战争和团队运动的视觉线索会影响皮肤的导电性，但我们没有找到支持运动可以替代战争的假设。因为这项研究完全基于视觉线索，我们讨论了可能影响未来调查的其他可能性。