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They developed what they call “the crazy bastard hypothesis” which says that young men are attracted to risk-taking because it reveals one’s propensity to take risks with one’s own life, a propensity that makes a man a dangerous enemy and a useful ally.



Previous research indicates that people use the dimensions of size and strength in forming a mental image that captures how formidable an individual is.



The researchers found that people conceptualise risk-prone men as larger and stronger even though, in reality, there is no connection between size and risk taking. Likewise, risk-prone men are seen as more violent.



Previous researchers described the tendency for young men to be disproportionately involved in both violence and non-violent activities entailing a risk of injury or death as a “young male syndrome”.



The California researchers say that one interpretation of this thesis, which they term `the crazy bastard hypothesis’, holds that the correlation between violence and other forms of physical risk-taking occurs because these behaviours inherently show the general propensity of young men to take risks with their life.



In a Evolution & Human Behavior, they say that in violent conflicts, individuals who are indifferent to the prospect of injury or death constitute dangerous adversaries – and valuable allies.



“Voluntary physical risk-taking may thus serve a signalling function such that risk-prone individuals are perceived as more formidable than risk-averse individuals. Prior work has demonstrated that relative formidability is represented using the dimensions of conceptualised size and strength, providing an avenue for testing ‘the crazy bastard hypothesis’,” the researchers say.



“In multiple studies conducted in two disparate societies, we demonstrate that physically risk-prone men are envisioned to be larger, stronger, and more violent than risk-averse men. A separate study reveals that such conceptualisations are unlikely to reflect actual correlations between size or strength and physical risk-proneness, and are instead plausibly interpreted as revealing the contribution of observed physical risk-proneness to assessments of relative formidability.”

A study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, sought to find out why young men are disproportionately involved in both violence and non-violent activities entailing a risk of injury or death.They developed what they call “the crazy bastard hypothesis” which says that young men are attracted to risk-taking because it reveals one’s propensity to take risks with one’s own life, a propensity that makes a man a dangerous enemy and a useful ally.Previous research indicates that people use the dimensions of size and strength in forming a mental image that captures how formidable an individual is.The researchers found that people conceptualise risk-prone men as larger and stronger even though, in reality, there is no connection between size and risk taking. Likewise, risk-prone men are seen as more violent.Previous researchers described the tendency for young men to be disproportionately involved in both violence and non-violent activities entailing a risk of injury or death as a “young male syndrome”.The California researchers say that one interpretation of this thesis, which they term `the crazy bastard hypothesis’, holds that the correlation between violence and other forms of physical risk-taking occurs because these behaviours inherently show the general propensity of young men to take risks with their life.In a paper published in, they say that in violent conflicts, individuals who are indifferent to the prospect of injury or death constitute dangerous adversaries – and valuable allies.“Voluntary physical risk-taking may thus serve a signalling function such that risk-prone individuals are perceived as more formidable than risk-averse individuals. Prior work has demonstrated that relative formidability is represented using the dimensions of conceptualised size and strength, providing an avenue for testing ‘the crazy bastard hypothesis’,” the researchers say.“In multiple studies conducted in two disparate societies, we demonstrate that physically risk-prone men are envisioned to be larger, stronger, and more violent than risk-averse men. A separate study reveals that such conceptualisations are unlikely to reflect actual correlations between size or strength and physical risk-proneness, and are instead plausibly interpreted as revealing the contribution of observed physical risk-proneness to assessments of relative formidability.” Follow University World News on Facebook



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