From Human Nature in 2012:



The Importance of Physical Strength to Human Males

Aaron Sell & Liana S. E. Hone & Nicholas Pound

… Warfare and the Hollywood Action Star

If attitudes about warfare are causally tied to a man’s own sense of fighting ability, we would expect professions, industries, and coalitions of strong, powerful men to be more likely to endorse attitudes about the utility of political aggression as a means of resolving conflicts of interest. More interestingly, even among professions that are typically left-leaning with respect to attitudes about war,1 we should expect to find exceptions among those who are physically formidable. We tested for this pattern among a small group of

(Where the terms “left” and “right” are used in the present manuscript they are intended to refer to their commonly understood meanings in the contemporary United States, where “left-leaning” refers to beliefs typically associated with the Democratic Party, including a more “dovish” approach to war, whereas “rightleaning” refers to beliefs associated with the Republican Party, including a more “hawkish” approach to war.”

physically strong men, Hollywood action stars, who work and reside in a culture that is left-leaning compared with contemporary America, particularly when it comes to views on the utility of warfare. If physical strength in men leads to more positive views of the utility of war, then even in a population with predominately leftist attitudes, such as Hollywood actors, those actors known for their physical strength and formidability should be more likely to be supportive of military action.

Each actor was then put into one of two political categories regarding the utility of warfare: left-wing (i.e., warfare leads to more problems) or right-wing (i.e., warfare solves problems). Because the actors were largely American citizens and working in America during the late twentieth century, the “antiwar” position was indicated by support of the Democratic Party, which, to a large extent, opposed the Vietnam and Iraq wars, America’s most significant foreign military actions in the latter part of the century. The complications of history make this a simplification, but for the purposes of this study what matters is the public perception of the parties’ platforms. The Democratic Party has been the party supported by those who wish to end foreign incursions and the Republican Party has been the party supported by those who wish to use the U.S. military to attack America’s enemies (Aldrich et al. 2006). The actor’s political affiliation was assessed using a five-step ordered procedure:

if the actor had run for office as a member of a political party, he was classified as a supporter of that party. One actor was classified by this criterion. & if the actor’s political donations to one party were more than double those to another, he was classified as a supporter of that party. Thirty-eight actors were classified by this criterion. & if the actor made direct statements regarding a military action by the United States he was categorized accordingly. Eight actors were classified by this criterion.

if the actor made direct statements of support for a party or a politician, or if they

spoke at a party fund raiser or convention, they were categorized accordingly.

Eleven actors were classified by this criterion.

spoke at a party fund raiser or convention, they were categorized accordingly. Eleven actors were classified by this criterion. finally, if not classified by any previous criteria, actors were classified by any

stated support they had for left-wing or right-wing causes. Only three actors were

classified according to this criterion based on support of these left-wing causes:

desire for more regulation of free market capitalism, support for Che Guevera, and preference for government-provided universal health care. …

As expected, Hollywood actors are generally more supportive of left-wing politics and politicians, with 47 [of 61] of the actors (77.0%) being categorized as left-wing and 14 (23.0%) as right-wing. Despite that general pattern, a chi-square test indicated significant differences in the distribution of political attitudes between different categories of actors (χ2 015.0; df02; p<0.001). As shown in Fig. 2, actors known for their physical strength and formidability—action stars—were the exception. More than half of Hollywood action stars in our sample (56.3%) were right-wing according to our categorization process. These included such imposing figures as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Dwayne Johnson (“the Rock”), and Charlton Heston. Post-hoc comparisons indicated that right-wing categorizations were significantly more common (χ2 013.9; df01; p<0.001) among action actors (56.3%) than dramatic actors (4.2%). Similarly, right-wing categorizations were more common (χ2 05.5; df01; p<0.05) among action actors than comedic actors (19.0%).

Consistent with the hypothesis that physical strength is linked to positive views of the utility of warfare, many of the action stars categorized as left-wing were indeed physically less imposing than their right-wing counterparts. For example, Nicholas Cage, Tom Cruise, Pierce Brosnan, and Keanu Reeves are prominent left-wing action stars but do not appear to have the same physiques as Schwarzenegger, Stallone, or Chuck Norris. Furthermore, several of the right-wing comedic and dramatic stars were also physically formidable, such as Matthew McConaughey and Vince Vaughn. Though they were not mentioned repeatedly by our subjects, and thus did not contribute to our analysis, many other physically formidable actors contributed to or supported right-wing political causes, including James Earl Jones, Tom Selleck, LL Cool J, Lorenzo Lamas, Dean Cain, Mickey Rourke, Clint Walker, Clancy Brown, Chuck Conners, Ronald Reagan, “Hulk Hogan,” and Kurt Russell.2 …

A simple independent t-test compared the height of right-wing actors (mean 72.7 inches) with the height of left-wing actors (mean 70.3 inches) on our list and showed that the right-wing actors were significantly taller …