If you vote for the winning candidate in the upcoming elections, you’ll probably go looking for porn. That’s according to a recent study in Evolution and Human Behavior.
A husband-and-wife team of psychologists studied the relationship between search requests for pornography and the testosterone levels of males after three recent elections. In the winning states, porn searches spiked.
“We don’t usually think that our testosterone might go up after elections,” said Patrick Markey, a psychologist from Villanova University, “or that we become more sexually interested in our mates or pornography immediately following a win, but this suggests the environment changes us in ways that we don’t think about,”
Past studies have found that men experience an increase in testosterone after they win something, even if they’re just spectators. Knowing that high testosterone levels and sex go hand-in-hand, Markey and his wife, Charlotte Markey of Rutgers University, took the obvious next step: check the days immediately after the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections for an increase in Google searches for porn. (This is why you’re not a scientist.)
“The Markeys discovered that after the 2004 presidential election (won by Republican George W. Bush) and the 2008 presidential elections (won by Democrat Obama), porn searches did go up in states that voted for the winning party,” according to the report.
This also held true for the 2006 midterm elections. When the Democrats won back the House and the Senate, blue states experienced an uptick in searches for porn.
“We don’t know for sure if testosterone is the reason why we are seeing these changes in porn-seeking behavior,” Markey said, “but it seems like the best explanation at the moment.”
This could have dire consequences for Christine O’Donnell’s campaign. Christine, stop now. If you win, your supporters won’t be celebrating by singing “Kumbayah.” No, they’ll be doing something a little more “selfish.”