Deep-voiced men have more kids

When the reproduction urge strikes women, they seem to prefer men with deeper voices than their high-pitched counterparts.

Men with low-pitched voices have more kids, as compared to their high–pitched counterparts, a new study has revealed.

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The study suggests that for reproductive-minded women, mate selection favours men with low-pitched voices.

In the study, the researchers also offer insight into the evolution of the human voice as well as how we choose our mates.

In previous studies, David Feinberg, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University, and his colleagues have revealed that women find deeper male voices to be more attractive, judging them to be more dominant, older, healthier and more masculine sounding.

However, men find higher-pitch voices in women more attractive, subordinate, feminine, healthier and younger sounding.

“While we find in this new study that voice pitch is not related to offspring mortality rates. We find that men with low voice pitch have higher reproductive success and more children born to them,” says Feinberg.

Feinberg and his colleague Coren Apicella chose their subjects for this study from the Hadza of Tanzania, one of the last true hunter-gatherer cultures.

Since the Hadza have no modern birth control, the researchers were able to determine that men who have lower pitched voices have more children than men with higher pitched voices.

“If our ancestors went through a similar process. This could be one reason why men’s and women’s voices sound different,” says Feinberg.

The study is published in Biology Letters.