THE CASANOVA EFFECT

THE CASANOVA EFFECT

Imagine deciding to quit your job and embark on a new career as a professional palmist. You invest in the requisite purple caftan, set up a small booth on the busy promenade in the nearest seaside town, and nervously await your first customer. A few moments later, a man walks in, sits down, and crosses your palm with silver. You carefully look at the stranger s hand and try to spot any telltale clues that might give you a magical insight into his life. Is his soft skin a sign of office work? Do his chewed nails signal a recent job loss? Is his calloused palm suggestive of too much time at the gymor does it reflect a strong need to find a love interest? According to some psychologists, you would be much

better off ignoring his soft skin, chewed nails, and calloused palm, instead shifting your attention to the length of his index and ring fingers. Theirargument is a curiousone,whichlinksthe

famous eighteenth-centurywomanizerGiacomo Casanova with some of Britains most famous soccer players.

According

to

his

colorful autobiography,

Casanovaenjoyedthe company ofmanyEuropean

kings, cardinals, poets, and artists.7 At one point he describes how he spent time with the eminent German painter Anton Raphael Mengs. After a while, they started to argue, with Mengs berating Casanova for not observing his religious duties and Casanovaaccusing Mengs of being a child-beating alcoholic. As the situation

moved from bad to worse, Casanova took it upon himself to criticize one of Mengss paintings. He pointed out that the index finger of a principal male character was longerthanthe

ringfinger and

was therefore anatomically incorrect, as mens ring fingers were longer than their index fingers. Mengsdefendedhis work by showing that his own index finger was longer than his ring finger. Casanova stuck to his argument, showing that his ring finger was longer than his index finger, claiming that this was true of most men and arguing that his hands were thus like that of all the children descended from Adam.

Affronted,

Mengs

asked Casanova, Then from whom do you suppose

I am descended?Casanova replied, I have no idea; but it is certain

that you are not of my species. As the argument escalated, they raised a bet of one hundred pistoles on the issue and promptlyrounded

up

thepainter s servants to discover who was right. A quickperusaloftheservantshands revealed that Casanova was correct, but Mengs quickly saved face by rejoicing in the fact that he could now boast of being unique in something.

Evolutionary

psychologistJohn Manning,at theUniversity of Central Lancashire, has dedicated much of his professionallife

tostudying

the differences in finger lengths described by Casanova. He argues that they reveal an important insight into the human psyche.8Manning and his colleagues measure the length of peoples index and ring fingers,

and then divide the first length by the secondtoobtainwhatiscommonly referred to as the 2D:4D (second digit to fourth digit) ratio. If the ring and index fingers are exactly the same length, then the 2D:4D ratio will be 1.00. If, however, the ring finger is longer than the index finger, then the 2D:4D ratio will be less than 1.00, and conversely, if the index finger is longer than the ring finger, then the 2D:4D ratio will be greater than 1.00.

The research has conclusively revealed that the finger-length pattern described by Casanova tends to be associated far more with men than with women, with the average 2D:4D ratio for men being about

.98, while the corresponding figure for women hoversaround1.00.In short, mens ring fingers tend to be longer than

theirindexfingers,whereaswomens fingers tend to be about the same length.

Why should this be the case? According to Manning, the explanation dates back to the very start of a persons life and is closely linked to testosterone levels in the womb. After about six weeks or so, the level of testosterone in the womb changes, and those fetuses that are exposed to large amounts of the hormone develop more male characteristics, while those exposed tomuch smaller levels

developmore female

attributes.

Manning argues

that testosterone

also plays akey role

in determining the length of a persons index and ring fingers, with high levels resulting in arelativelylongring finger.

If Manningstheory isright,

apersons

2D:4D ratio is related to the amount of

testosterone that they were exposed to in the womb and should provide a good indication of the degree to which they possess psychological and physical traits commonly

associatedwitheither masculinity or femininity. According to this theory, people with low 2D:4D ratios will be more likely than others to exhibit masculinecharacteristics,

while those withhigh

2D:4Dratios willbe significantly more likely to be in touch with their feminine side.

It is a controversial idea and one that has attracted its fair share of criticism.9However, proponents argue that a large

body of research now supports the theory,

includingworkexaminingphysical

strengthandsportingsuccess.Inone

study, a group of men had their finger

lengths measured and were then asked to complete various strength tests, including shoulder, overhead, and bench presses.10Theresultsrevealedtheexpected relationships. Men who had lower 2D:4D ratios were able to lift heavier weights than those with higher ratios. Often the differences were far from trivial. For example, for overhead presses, those with

2D:4D ratios of .91 lifted twenty-four pounds more than those with ratios of morethan 1.00.Inanother

study, researchersturned theirattentionto student sprinters and found that their times in the 100-meter, 800-meter, and 1,500- meter races were all related to 2D:4D ratios,

with thefaster runnershaving

lowerratios.11 Inanotherexperiment, Manning and his team managed to measure

the finger lengths of some of the best- known and most highly skilled soccer players in Britain.12 Attending a centenary celebration designed to mark the end of the 100th English League Championship, the researchers persuaded more than three hundredplayerstohavetheirhands photocopied,and

thencompared

their finger lengths to those of a control group of more than five hundred men who had never ventured onto a soccer field. The

2D:4Dratio

oftheplayerswas significantlylower than

thatof

the controls. Strong differences also emerged among the different groups of players, with high-performing legends and those who had played at an international level having especially low ratios.

Other work suggests that the 2D:4D

effectmay

alsoextend

to

certain psychological traits.

Agreatdealof research has

shown that men tend to outperform women in tests that involve the mental manipulation of spatial information (perhaps explaining the alleged fondness of women for turning maps around when navigating).Inline

with this

finding, Manningbelieves

that

hisresearch suggests that men with low 2D:4D ratios (who therefore, according to his theory, possess more masculine brains) tend to outperformothers

on

these

tasks.13Similarly, he cites other work suggesting that when it comes to personality, women with lower 2D:4D ratios tend to exhibit traits that the researchers believe to be more male-oriented, including being more

assertive and risk taking.14According to Manning, the effect even extends to making music. Noting that there areabout tentimes

as many male professional

musicians

asfemales, Manning argues that musical ability is associated more with a masculine brain than a feminine brain and that therefore highly skilled performers should have an especially low 2D:4D ratio. To test this idea, he measured the 2D:4D ratio of fifty- four malemembers of

a well-known British

symphonyorchestra.

Several sections of the orchestra were organized in a hierarchical way, with more highly skilled musicians taking key positions. Manning discovered that performers in these

keypositions

did

indeed

have significantly lower 2D:4D ratios than their fellow musicians.15In order to obtain a mysterious insight into yourself and others, it may well be better to forget traditional palmistry and insteadfocusyourattentiononthe apparently important relative lengths of the index finger and the ring finger.