A study finds that more assertive political views correlate to physical strength, “as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation among small numbers of individuals, rather than abstract electoral dynamics among millions”:
The professors look at a sample of individuals from the US, Argentina and Denmark and their socioeconomic level, physical strength (using bicep size as a proxy), and support for political policies that redistribute resources from the rich to the poor (as measured through questionnaires). They hypothesize that under their “evolutionarily-based theory of political orientation,” strong men will favor redistribution if they are poor and oppose it if they are rich. Just like in the primal past, they should expect to receive resources, but not to give up their own.
Their results support the hypothesis. A man’s strength correlated with his support for or opposition to redistributional policies depending on whether he was rich or poor.
The Dish 