Digit ratio (2D:4D) and social integration: An effect of prenatal sex hormones

Abstract

The position people occupy in their social and professional networks is related to their social status and affects their access to social resources. Behavioral traits shape network attainment, yet biological factors also predispose individuals toward certain behaviors and motivations. Prior work shows that exposure to fetal androgens (measured by second-to-fourth digit ratio, 2D:4D) correlates with traits linked to social status, which might increase social integration, but also correlates with anti-social behaviors associated with lower socialization. We test whether 2D:4D correlates with network position later in life and find that individuals with low 2D:4D become more central in their social environments. Low 2D:4D males are more likely to exhibit high betweenness centrality, connecting separated parts of the social structure, while low 2D:4D females are more likely to exhibit high in-degree centrality, being named as friends by more peers. These gender-specific patterns are reinforced by differences in transitivity: neighbors of low 2D:4D men tend not to know each other, while the opposite holds for low 2D:4D women. These findings suggest that biological predispositions influence the organization of human societies and that prenatal androgen exposure shapes distinct status-seeking behaviors in men and women.

Cite

@article{kovavrik2017digit,
title={Digit ratio (2D: 4D) and social integration: an effect of prenatal sex hormones},
author={Kov{\'a}{\v{r}}{\'\i}k, Jarom{\'\i}r and Branas-Garza, Pablo and Davidson, Michael W and Haim, Dotan A and Carcelli, Shannon and Fowler, James H},
journal={Network Science},
volume={5},
number={4},
pages={476--489},
year={2017},
publisher={Cambridge University Press}
}