Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Oct-Dec;15(4):1474704917740466.
doi: 10.1177/1474704917740466.

Hadza Men With Lower Voice Pitch Have a Better Hunting Reputation

Kristopher M Smith  1 , Yevgeniy M Olkhov  2 , David A Puts  3 , Coren L Apicella  1
Affiliations

Hadza Men With Lower Voice Pitch Have a Better Hunting Reputation

Kristopher M Smith et al. Evol Psychol. 2017 Oct-Dec.

Abstract

Previous research with hunter-gatherers has found that women perceive men with voices manipulated to be lower in pitch to be better hunters, and men perceive women with lower pitch to be better gatherers. Here, we test if actual voice pitch is associated with hunting and gathering reputations in men and women, respectively. We find that voice pitch does relate to foraging reputation in men, but not in women, with better hunters having a lower voice pitch. In addition, we find that the previously documented relationship between voice pitch and reproductive success no longer holds when controlling for hunting reputation, but hunting reputation remains a significant predictor of reproductive success when controlling for voice pitch. This raises the possibility that voice pitch is being selected for in hunter-gatherers because of the relationship between voice pitch and hunting reputation.

Keywords: Hadza; hunter-gatherers; hunting; reproductive success; sexual dimorphism; voice pitch.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Scatterplot with ordinary least squares regression line of voice pitch and foraging reputation in males and females. Lower reputation scores mean that individuals were ranked as a better hunter/gatherer. Shaded region is 95% confidence interval.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Alvard M. S., Gillespie A. (2004). Good Lamalera whale hunters accrue reproductive benefits. In Alvard M. (Ed.), Socioeconomic aspects of human behavioral ecology (pp. 225–247). Bingley, England: Emerald Group Publishing.
    1. Apicella C. L. (2014). Upper-body strength predicts hunting reputation and reproductive success in Hadza hunter-gatherers. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 508–518. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.07.001
    1. Apicella C. L. (2017). High levels of rule-bending in a minimally religious and largely egalitarian forager population. Religion, Brain & Behavior. doi:10.1080/2153599X.2016.1267034
    1. Apicella C. L., Azevedo E. M., Christakis N. A., Fowler J. H. (2014). Evolutionary origins of the endowment effect: Evidence from hunter-gatherers. American Economic Review, 1793–1805. doi:10.1257/aer.104.6.1793
    1. Apicella C. L., Barrett H. C. (2016). Cross-cultural evolutionary psychology. Current Opinion in Psychology, 7, 92–97. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.08.015

LinkOut - more resources