Men with lower voices will have more children than higher-pitched males, according to a new study.
In a study of the Hadza of Tanzania, one of the last hunter-gatherer cultures groups who use no modern birth control, David Feinberg, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and colleague, Coren Apicellam, found that men who have lower pitched voices had more children than men with higher pitched voices.
Feinberg and his colleagues have shown in previous studies that women find deeper male voices to be more attractive, judging them to be more dominant, older, healthier and more masculine while men find higher-pitched women more attractive, subordinate, feminine, healthier and younger sounding.
The study, published in Biology Letters, does not link voice pitch to offspring mortality rates but gives some insight into the evolution of voice, according to Feinberg. “If our ancestors went through a similar process”, said Feinberg, “this could be one reason why men’s and women’s voices sound different.”
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