A new study reveals that, despite the existence of Mike Tyson, a man’s voice is a pretty good indicator of his strength.
You say you didn’t realize she was his fiancée? On second thought, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to hit on her, considering she was wearing a ring and all. Well, now that doesn’t matter. You’re standing in the middle of the bar and he’s screaming like a crazy person and running at you from behind. Do you flee, or do you turn around and fight?
Here’s the answer: listen to his voice—and then get the hell out of there.
Tom Jacobs over at Miller-McCune reports on a study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The researchers discovered that, as humans, we do a pretty good job of sizing up a guy’s strength just from the sound of his voice.
Participants in the study were told to listen to voice samples from men from four different countries. From there, they were asked to assess what they thought the strength was of the person behind the voice. Their responses were surprisingly accurate.
We’re still best at figuring a guy’s strength by looking at him. Over time, though, we’ve developed the secondary ability to judge another man’s fighting capacity without using our eyes.
Back in the day—before we got soft and started using guns to resolve problems—men realized that size wasn’t necessarily the best indicator of strength. If you’re ever blind-folded in a boxing ring or debating whether or not to stick around and have a go at the guy taunting you in the Harry Potter cloak, listen for his voice and then thank your elders.
We also now have some confirmation that David Beckham is actually nothing more than a pretty boy (with a sweet right peg) and that you’d never want to be within a five-mile radius of an angry Shaqtus. However, James Earl Jones never seemed all that scary (physically, at least), but apparently we were wrong.
Still, though, there’s one probing question raised by the survey.
How in the world was Mike Tyson such a scary, scary man?
—Ryan O’Hanlon