Red or dead: In this episode we investigate the allure of violent video games, and how they relate to sex. Also, does the colour red increase a man's attractiveness?

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Are Men More Attractive in Red?
Why Do Women Play Violent Video Games?

Nice codpiece! Does dressing in red make a man sexier?

The articles covered in the show:

Elliot, A. J., Kayser, M., Greitemeyer, T., Lichtenfeld, S., Gramzow, R. H., Maier, M. A., et al. (2010). Red, rank, and romance in women viewing men. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139(3), 399-417. Read summary

Hesslinger, V. M., Goldbach, L., & Carbon, C.-C. (in press). Men in red: A reexamination of the red-attractiveness effect. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. Read summary

Kasumovic, M. M., Blake, K., Dixson, B. J., & Denson, T. F. (2015). Why do people play violent video games? Demographic, status-related, and mating-related correlates in men and women. Personality and Individual Differences, 86, 204-211. Read summary

Prokop, P., Pazda, A. D., & Elliot, A. J. (2015). Influence of conception risk and sociosexuality on female attraction to male red. Personality and Individual Differences, 87, 166-170. Read summary

How a higher pitched voice can make you sound more attractive, and suspicious. Also, war: what is it good for? We investigate the link between warfare and sex. And how do our hormones influence perceptions of art?

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Georgia O'Keeffe's "Black Iris III". Rudski showed pictures by O'Keeffe to women when they were in the fertile and non-fertile phases of their menstrual cycle. 31% of fertile women interpreted the pictures as sexual, but only 9% of non-fertile women saw the sexual double-meaning (for the record, O'Keeffe herself always denied her art had sexual connotations. She would say that, though, wouldn't she?).

The articles covered in the show:

Fraccaro, P. J., Jones, B. C., Vukovic, J., Smith, F. G., Watkins, C. D., Feinberg, D. R., et al. (2011). Experimental evidence that women speak in a higher voice pitch to men they find attractive. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 9(1), 57-67. Read summary

O'Connor, J. J. M., Re, D. E., & Feinberg, D. R. (2011). Voice pitch influences perceptions of sexual infidelity. Evolutionary Psychology, 9(1), 64-78. Read paper

Chang, L., Lu, H. J., Li, H., & Li, T. (in press). The face that launched a thousand ships: The mating-warring association in men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Read summary

Rudski, J. M., Bernstein, L. R., & Mitchell, J. E. (in press). Effects of menstrual cycle phase on ratings of implicitly erotic art. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary

I speak to Tyler Stillman of Florida State University about whether we can identify violent criminals just by looking at their faces. We also find out whether electoral candidates who appear more powerful or trustworthy can expect more votes, and how a woman's menstrual cycle can affect her preferences for hairy men.

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Schwarzenegger's masculine looks probably did him no harm when it came to running for governor of California.

The articles covered in the show:

Rantala, M. J., Pölkki, M., & Rantala, L. M. (2010). Preference for human male body hair changes across the menstrual cycle and menopause. Behavioral Ecology, 21(2), 419-423. Read summary

Stillman, T. F., Maner, J. K., & Baumeister, R. F. (In press). A thin slice of violence: distinguishing violent from nonviolent sex offenders at a glance. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary

Rule, N. O., Arnbady, N., Adams, R. B., Ozono, H., Nakashima, S., Yoshikawa, S., et al. (2010). Polling the Face: Prediction and Consensus Across Cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(1), 1-15. Read summary

I talked this month about Francis Galton, pioneer physiognomist and creator of composite portraiture. That's when you combine two or more facial photos into a single image. His photography skills are pretty amazing when you consider that he was working 125 years ago and was able to come up with some convincing results.

Francis Galton's composites of violent criminals. The images on the top are the real criminals, and the ones on the bottom are composites.

The image above shows images of Gordon Brown (a), that have been composited using Galton's method (b) and the modern method (c). In Galton's method, the images are rotated and scaled so that the eyes lie on top of each other before being combined. In the modern, computerised method, the locations of over 150 points are averaged before the images are combined. This gives a much clearer image. Galton's more primitive method could explain why he failed to find a 'criminal type', or it could just be because criminals don't look that different to everybody else.

Physiognomy is currently undergoing a resurgence, although most researchers study whether attractiveness, or personality traits such as trustworthiness, can be detected from faces. Perhaps because physiognomy is so closely associated with Galton, who founded eugenics and held typically 19th century views on race, attempts to extend study into areas such as criminality are often met with some resistance.