Men’s deep voice may not be for attracting women

A recent study found that deep voices in men are more to establish dominance among other men rather than to attract women, at least in a biological matter. The paper, published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society included humans and primates such as gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans.

In humans, a deep voice in men was perceived as more dominant and masculine by other men than a higher one in the same sex. In addition, although the lower voice in men did increased attractiveness perceived by the women in the experiment, this was not statistically relevant compared to the dominance findings, according to the study.

For the study, the team from Penn State University recorded more than 1,000 men and women speaking and then played the recording back to other subjects, also men and women, as reported by NBC News.
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Each male recording was rated by 15 men for dominance and 15 women for short and long term attractiveness. The women’s recordings were rated by 15 men for attractiveness but these results were not consistent, which means that this man had different opinions about the attractiveness in the women’s voices, whether there were deeper or not.

“We find that masculine traits in humans are not the same as, say, in peacocks where the beautiful tail attracts a mate,” said David A. Puts, associate professor of anthropology. “If similar vocal sex differences appear across species with similar levels of mating competition, then we infer that sexual selection produced these sex differences,” he added.

The team also found that among the other animals, the differences between male and female vocal pitch were higher in humans than in any other species measured in the study. The results were consistent in the other species as well, meaning that they perceived deep voices as a more dominant quality.

Less stress hormone

In the subjects, it was measured as well levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, and testosterone, the so-called male hormone. Higher levels or cortisol tend to be damaging to the health.

The team found that men with low-pitched voices had lower levels of cortisol and a higher level of testosterone. According to study coauthor Alex Hill, a lot of what is found attractive in prospective mates, they think, has to do with the evolutionary past. “We were essentially walking health records,” he added.

Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society