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Relative Finger Lengths, Sex Differences, and Psychological Traits

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Abstract

Various finger length and personality and ability measures were obtained for a sample of Australian adolescent twins (306 boys and 397 girls). A new measure of relative finger length (the length of a given finger relative to the sum of all four fingers) was investigated, and shown to be superior to the traditional 2D:4D for discriminating between the sexes. It also had the advantage of permitting a more analytic approach: for example, the 2nd finger-length contributed much more than the 4th finger length to the sex difference in 2D:4D, and a smooth gradient of sex differences across the hand was evident. Sex differences on right hands were greater than those for left hands. Within-sex correlations were obtained between the various finger-length measures and a personality and an ability scale that showed relatively large sex differences (Eysenck’s Psychoticism scale and the spatial subscale from Jackson’s Multidimensional Aptitude Battery). The correlations were low, but on the whole consistent with the between-sex differences for the girls. For the boys, this was so for Psychoticism, but spatial ability was, if anything, correlated in the opposite direction.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Jenny Tran and Nancy Tran at Texas for carrying out the computer measurement of finger lengths; they were supported on NIH grant DC 00153. Collection of phenotypes was supported by grants from the Queensland Cancer Fund (NGM), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (950998, 981339 and 241944; NGM), and the U.S. National Cancer Institute (CA88363; NGM). We thank Ann Eldridge, Marlene Grace, and Alison McKenzie for phenotype collection; and the twins and their siblings for their participation. Finally, we are very grateful to Dennis McFadden for the contributions of his laboratory to the project, and for his comments on preliminary versions of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Texas, 1 University Station A8000, Austin, TX, 78712-0187, USA

    John C. Loehlin

  2. Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Sarah E. Medland & Nicholas G. Martin

  3. Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Sarah E. Medland

Authors
  1. John C. Loehlin
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  2. Sarah E. Medland
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  3. Nicholas G. Martin
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Correspondence to John C. Loehlin.

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Loehlin, J.C., Medland, S.E. & Martin, N.G. Relative Finger Lengths, Sex Differences, and Psychological Traits. Arch Sex Behav 38, 298–305 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9303-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9303-z

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