Reply to Durkee: ‘Do the Maasai perceive weak walkers to be stronger and more attractive than strong walkers? A re-analysis of Fink et al. (2019)’

摘要

Handgrip strength (HGS) may be a Darwinian fitness indicator in human males [1]. Research with Western samples suggests that gait conveys information about male physical strength, as assessed by HGS. Women more than men judged the gait of strong walkers higher on attractiveness (and strength) [2,3]. These findings were obtained with samples from Chile, Germany and Russia by collecting assessments of featureless virtual characters, animated with the motion-captured walk movements of young British men, pre-categorized into strong versus weak walkers based on HGS. Thus, Fink et al. [4] hypothesized that across countries men and women can assess male strength from gait (although they differ in attractiveness assessments of strong and weak male walkers) and that attractiveness assessments of male gait may be affected by society-specific emphasis on male physical strength.