January 13, 2009, - 1:27 pm

Guys, Check Out Your Ring Finger: Another Stupid Pop Culture Measurement

By Debbie Schlussel
I don’t buy into this. And I’ve heard the same baloney about this same measurement allegedly indicating whether a man will cheat, whether he has sexual prowess, and something about penis size. All stupid, and all for vapid women with nothing better to do than watch “The View,” read and believe everything in Cosmo, and then go shop at Chico’s for some ugly new woven print jacket, before heading home to catch Oprah and order out for dinner (because they can’t cook).
But I figure it’s worth posting this junk “science” for the entertainment in silliness value:

The length of a man’s ring finger may predict his success as a financial trader. Researchers at the University of Cambridge in England report that [DS: effeminate English] men with longer ring fingers, compared to their index fingers, tended to be more successful in the frantic high-frequency trading in the London financial district.

You Are . . . Your Digits?: Ring Finger Junk Science . . .

ringfingerjunkscience.jpg

Indeed, the impact of biology on success was about equal to years of experience at the job, the team led by physiologist John M. Coates reports in Monday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The same ring-to-index finger ratio has previously been associated with success in competitive sports such as soccer and basketball, the researchers noted.
The length ratio between those two fingers is determined during the development of the fetus and the relatively longer ring finger indicates greater exposure to the male hormone androgen, the researchers noted.
Previous studies have found that such exposure can lead to increased confidence, risk preferences, search persistence, heightened vigilance and quickened reaction times.
In a separate study last year, Coates and colleagues reported that the hormone that drives male aggression and sexual interest also seemed able to boost short term success at finance.
They studied male financial traders in London, taking saliva samples in the morning and evening. They found that those with higher levels of testosterone in the morning were more likely to make an unusually big profit that day. Testosterone, best known as the male sex hormone, affects aggression, confidence and risk-taking.
In the new study, the researchers measured the right hands of 44 male stock traders who were engaged in a type of trade that involved rapid decision-making and quick physical reactions.
Over 20 months those with longer ring fingers compared to their index fingers made 11 times more money than those with the shortest ring fingers. Over the same time the most experienced traders made about 9 times more than the least experienced ones.
Looking only at experienced traders, the long-ring-finger folks earned 5 times more than those with short ring fingers.
While the finger ratio, showing fetal exposure to male hormones, appears to signal likely success in high-actively trading that calls for risk-taking and quick reactions, it may not indicate people who would do well at other sorts of financial activities, the researchers said.
Some traders require additional skills on dealing with clients and sales workers.
And the advantage may even reverse for some, Coates team said, such as traders taking a more analytical and long-term approach to the markets.
One study, which looked at average finger ratios in university departments found that faculty from math, science and engineering exhibited longer index finger ratio, rather than ring finger, they noted.

To the guys reading this whose fingers don’t “measure up,” take a good laugh at this pop science bullcrap. Anyone who believes that the fingers of a small, select group of 40-odd British pansies and London girlie-men–who’ve willingly allowed Muslims to take over their country–can be accurately projected onto your life to describe your likely success, is an idiot.
I don’t judge people by their finger-length. Anyone who does has a life as meaningless and useless as the people who did this ridiculous, profligate “study.”
In this faltering worldwide economy (that, yes, is also taking place in London and throughout Britain), you’d think they’d quit wasting money on dumb studies like this. But you’d be wrong.






12 Responses

Now I feel real sorry for the circumcised Muslim girls.
If in the West success is being measured by the size and the length of fingers, penises and boobs, in the Muslim world, success is measured by how long a Muslim girl will have to suffer to get an orgasm.

Independent Conservative on January 13, 2009 at 2:02 pm

I have an extremely long ring finger, longer than my index. I also have big feet, big hands, and a huge nose… and a big car. 🙂

Norman Blitzer on January 13, 2009 at 2:44 pm

A person should be judged by their character. A woman who takes the trivial seriously isn’t a candidate for a good marriage with a man.

NormanF on January 13, 2009 at 3:40 pm

NormanF: A person should be judged by their character. A woman who takes the trivial seriously isn’t a candidate for a good marriage with a man.
Looks like the psychonuts came up with another new “relevance” tatic. The finger thing is right up there with judging people because they are a different race, listen to a different music, have different views, or even have a different taste in food (I’m seroius!).

Squirrel3D on January 13, 2009 at 3:52 pm

What’s next the return of “Phrenology”?

DEFinley on January 13, 2009 at 5:15 pm

When you do a google search of many major newspapers, the subheadings under google invariably include astrology, apparently one of the most widely-read sections of the paper. If astrology is so widely read, I’d expect anything. This doesn’t surprise me then.
In a way, I guess you could make a bell-shaped curve, made up of correlation of different types of independent variables; in this example the variables would be size of ring finger (x) and success as a financial trader (y). With enough of these nonsensical variables, sooner or later, by the law of averages, we would find a few on the right tail that had high coefficients of correlation. People who don’t know how to think will, of course be impressed with this, just as they are impressed by astrology.

c f on January 13, 2009 at 6:57 pm

My ring finger is longer and I’m a heterosexual woman.

49smudge on January 13, 2009 at 7:06 pm

What about those of us with long “bird fingers”?

rtaylor174 on January 14, 2009 at 12:02 am

Ok ladies, hate to brag but most of the other type “a’s” that I know are in possession of long ring fingers. Maybe in earlier times the longer finger allowed us to grab the hair of an opponent better for a beat down or subdue a cave woman better;)

samurai on January 14, 2009 at 1:01 am

Stop hatin’ on valid studies like this. Next thing you know they’ll find a link between higher test scores and literacy.

samurai on January 14, 2009 at 1:03 am

Why do you automatically dismiss the study? The differences between the size and shape of each finger/thumb have to do with the amount of exposure of each finger to the Sonic Hedgehog protein (really, that’s what it’s called) during gestation. Basically, your fingers/thumb would come out looking all pretty much the same if it weren’t for different levels of Sonic Hedgehog exposure at different stages of development. The more Sonic Hedgehog your fingers are expose to (if I remember correctly), the smaller/stubbier they come out looking – so the chemical is present in higher concentrations for the pinky and thumb than for the middle three fingers.
Sonic Hedgehog is also responsible for all sorts of other stuff during gestation, including brain, bone, and muscle structure. So it’s completely plausible that ring fingers develop at the same time that certain body parts or brain sections develop that give one masculine traits. In other words, the ring fingers might just be a piece of visual evidence of what kinds of chemicals your body was full of at certain points while you were in the womb.
It really isn’t a ridiculous hypothesis if you understand a bit about prenatal development… (which admittedly is all I understand – a bit)
More here about Sonic Hedgehog:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog

LibertarianBulbasaur on January 14, 2009 at 1:33 am

My wife is a very happy woman.

locomotivebreath1901 on January 14, 2009 at 11:15 am

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