Editors' Blog Blogger Bio
Sex, Golf and the Stock Market
This is fascinating stuff!
New research, out of Cambridge University, suggests a distinct connection between turbulence in the financial markets and ... hormones.
A group of financial traders in London participated in a controlled study in which their testosterone levels were tested several times a day, over eight business days. Traders who began their days with high testosterone levels appeared to be more confident and more aggressive. They made bolder decisions, which resulted in above average gains. That is, until it all came crashing down in a testosterone overdose.
You see, when the levels remained high over an extended period, the extra confidence and aggression began to provoke irrational risk-taking. And really dumb decisions.
In another fascinating bit of neuropsychology news, a brain-scan study that took place at Stanford University indicates that sex affects the state of our financial markets as well. This experiment used a random chance game and a series of images and focused on an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens. It's a type of pleasure center. When a group of young men were shown erotic pictures they were much more likely to make a large financial gamble than if they were shown something creepy,like a scorpion, or neutral, like a paper clip. Using MRI images the scientists concluded that activating the pleasure center with the sexy photos caused the risky decision making.
And how does this connect to golf? Well, when I'm playing with
guys and happen to be wearing one of my
rather-revealing-but-always-tasteful golf outfits, or when there are
some particularly seductive cart girls about, a disproportionate
number of balls end up in the woods or the water, because very few
shots are set up... even when it's ultra obvious they should have been.
To me that looks like irrational decision making fueled by something
going on in someone's nucleus accumbens.
Now I would never be so politically incorrect as to suggest dressing sexy to gain an advantage. But it might not hurt to leave a couple of those Victoria's Secret catalogs lying casually in the golf carts.
llustration - Patricia Hannigan/Golf Girl Media
This IS fascinating, and in reading your article, and the ones you refer to, I definitely came away thinking that men are much more susceptible to hormonal fluctuations than we are!
I'm quite certain the lack of testosterone comes into play and creates a disadvantage for women as much as the excess does or men. I see from playing with my women friends that many of them do not to well due to lack of confidence not lack of skill or ability.