How many risks do you take
In the process of pregnancy, sex hormones (estrogens and testosterone) determine the length of the fingers. Additionally, prenatal testosterone has important effects on brain organization and future behavior. A study from Concordia University (USA) published in September 2011 in the journal Personality and Individual Differences concluded that the ratio between the length of the second and fourth fingers of the hand is an indicator of both prenatal exposure levels to the hormone testosterone and the predisposition to take risks in men.
As Gad Saad and colleagues found, the higher the exposure to testosterone before birth, the slower the index finger grows relative to the sum of the rest of the fingers on the hand, excluding the thumb. Thus, individuals with the shorter index finger are more likely to take risks both socially and when it comes to dating, sports or finances. Furthermore, in all the contexts analyzed, the researchers found that men were more likely to seek risks than women.
School notes
The ratio between the finger we use to point (index) and the ring finger can help predict primary school outcomes in 7-year-olds, according to research from the University of Bath published in the British Journal of Psychology in 2007. According to the authors, this is because higher exposure to testosterone, which in the fingers of the hand translates into a longer ring finger, is also associated with increased mathematical and spatial dexterity. On the contrary, the greater the exposure to estrogens in the fetal stage, the greater the linguistic ability (and the shorter the ring finger in relation to the index finger). “It has been argued that testosterone promotes the development of areas of the brain that are often associated with spatial and mathematical skills,” explained Mark Brosnan, lead author of the work.
“Estrogen is believed to do the same in areas of the brain that are often associated with verbal ability.” Interestingly, these hormones are also believed to have a say in the relative length of our index and ring fingers. “We can use measurements of these fingers as a way to measure relative exposure to these two hormones in utero and, as we have shown through this study, we can also use them to predict ability in the key areas of numeracy and literacy.”
Prostate cancer
According to a study released in the British Journal of Cancer , men with an index finger longer than the ring finger are 33% less likely to develop prostate cancer. Additionally, those with longer ring fingers are more likely to suffer from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive paralysis and often leads to death within two years from respiratory failure.
