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Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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Want to Get Rich? Look at Your Hands
January 12, 2009 5:17 PM
What makes for a financial whiz? It's all in the wrist. Or, actually, the fingers. Read on.
A team at the University of Cambridge in England reports that the most successful stock traders at a London brokerage firm they studied are ones who were exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb. Presumably, they're bigger risk-takers, more confident, able to work fast in a high-stress environment.
But how do you tell which adults had more testosterone before birth? Measure their fingers. A longer ring finger, compared to the index finger, means you got more testosterone.
If you look at your own hands, you'll probably note that the index and ring fingers (the second and fourth) are very close in length. In men, the index finger tends to be slightly longer; in women, it's the reverse, though not by much.
(My ring finger is definitely longer than my index finger. At least on my left hand.)
It's not a meaningless difference. The more successful traders in the study (almost everyone at the firm was male) made on the order of $6 million a year -- and the researchers say the high-testosterone, long ring-fingered ones, on average, earned six times as much money as their short-fingered colleagues. The full paper, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is HERE. (And fingers as a hormonal marker are useful; see the piece that Lauren Cox of our medical unit has written HERE.)
There's, of course, a lot more to the art of getting rich -- like knowledge, judgment, and the ability to collaborate. The authors -- John Coates, Mark Gurnell, and Aldo Rustichini -- say the macho, quick-acting profile that seems to go with high testosterone levels in men may not be the best thing if you're in some field other than fast-paced stock trading.
Lead author Coates -- a former trader turned business-school professor -- goes on to warn against applying the averages they found to individual traders. There's been a lot of research on athletes -- where the hulking toughness that you'd think comes with high testosterone would seem to be prized. But Coates points to a favorite example: Jimmy Connors, the tennis player who won eight Grand Slam titles, stood only 5'9".
(Photo credit: National Academy of Sciences, PNAS.)
January 12, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (11)
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Yes, the researchers are right. Once upon a time (i.e. a very long time ago)a crow had landed on a tree and a fruit from that tree had fallen to the ground. So, from this we easily deduced that the crow's landing on the tree had caused the fruit to fall to the ground. Now include me also as a researcher with a testoterone.
Posted by: narumanchi | Jan 12, 2009 5:49:09 PM
The testosterone hypothesis makes sense, but the relative finger length sounds suspiciously like the way I was told you could detect werewolves 40 years ago. Or maybe it was vampires. I guess I wasn't paying that much attention.
Posted by: jock59801 | Jan 12, 2009 6:02:17 PM
These sort of observational practices remind me of phrenology, which was assigning certain attributes to a person based on things like the head shape and facial characteristics. I think a high forehead meant intelligence, large eyes meant naivety, etc. Sounds kind of regressive that a longer ring finger in men indicates an ability to make money and means more testosterone. Actually, it sounds more like palmistry than science.
Posted by: kat | Jan 12, 2009 6:04:26 PM
Hey, the article title is deceptive. How am I going to grow my index finger, where can I stick it to do that? Someone should invent Rogain for Fingers.
Posted by: s | Jan 12, 2009 6:12:02 PM
My ring fingers are about 3/8" longer than my index fingers. And I lost half of my worth recently
Posted by: bashfulx | Jan 12, 2009 6:22:41 PM
No wonder my ringer finger is sooooooooo long :)
Posted by: hubitt | Jan 12, 2009 8:20:49 PM
Phrenology is about using the head to assign attributes and physiognomy is about the facial features. I accidentally lumped the two together. When you use the hands and fingers, it's palmistry, but called something else, I guess, when Cambridge University studies it. I hope they're right and that it applies to either gender, because my ring fingers are longer than my index fingers. And I would fancy making a killing in the stock market.
Posted by: kat | Jan 12, 2009 8:24:00 PM
My ring finger is longer than my index finger.. and I am female... and I've done very well financially... what is this article trying to say about women.. we don't have this trait?
Posted by: ukgigi | Jan 13, 2009 9:26:22 AM
And how much money were these clever people paid to research and publish such rubbish?
Posted by: Jane G | Jan 13, 2009 11:20:18 AM
If most of the risk-takers are men, and we're in a financial mess due to risk, wouldn't that mean that the people with the shorter ring fingers would be better at finance?
Posted by: Common Sense | Jan 14, 2009 6:14:49 AM
Oooh palmistry...fun stuff.
Posted by: ScorpRedhead | Jan 14, 2009 1:29:40 PM
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