2D:4D Asymmetry and Academic Performance: Evidence from Moscow and Manilà

John Nye, Gregory Androushchak (), Desiree Desierto, Garett Jones and Maria Yudkevich
Additional contact information
Gregory Androushchak: Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms, Higher School of Economics (Russia)

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: Exposure to prenatal androgens affects both future behavior and life choices. However, there is still relatively limited evidence on its effects on academic performance. Moreover, the predicted effect of exposure to prenatal testosterone (T) - which is inversely correlated with the relative length of the second to fourth finger lengths (2D:4D) - would seem to have ambiguous effects on academic achievement since traits like confidence, aggressiveness, or risk-taking are not uniformly positive for success in school. We provide the first evidence of a non-linear relationship between 2D:4D and academic achievement using samples from Moscow and Manila. We find that there is a quadratic relationship between high T exposure and markers of achievement such as grades or test scores and that the optimum digit ratio for women in our sample is lower (indicating higher prenatal T) than the average. The results for men are generally insignificant for Moscow but significant for Manila showing similar non-linear effects. Our work is thus unusual in that it draws from a large sample of nearly a thousand university students in Moscow and over a hundred from Manila for whom we also have extensive information on high school test scores, family background and other potential correlates of achievement. Our work is also the first to have a large cross country comparison that includes two groups with very different ethnic compositions.

Keywords: academic performance; university admissions; 2d4d ratio. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in WP BRP Series: Education / EDU, October 2011, pages 1-16

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hse.ru/data/2012/01/17/1260497886/John% ... MIC%20PERFOMANCE.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:01edu2011

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Shamil Abdulaev () and Shamil Abdulaev ().