Are Socialists Physically Weak? | The Atlantic
Olga Khazan
July 17, 2017

When the researchers compared the men’s measures of physical strength with their economic values, they found that the less musclebound men were both less socially dominant and more likely to support socio-political egalitarianism. In other words, yes, the strong men were less likely to be “socialist,” if you can call it that.

After controlling for time the men spent in the gym, the relationship between strength and social dominance—that belief in a “dog-eat-dog” world—remained. So it’s not just that gym rats are more socially dominant. However, after controlling for gym time, the association between physical strength and economic redistribution didn’t hold up.

So, what could be going on here?

The lead author of the study, Michael Price, a senior psychology lecturer at Brunel University London, chalks this up to evolutionary theory. In our ancestral past, men’s physical size determined their status and resources, so bigger men would have been fine with a survival-of-the-fittest type system.

In the study, the relationship between strength and an aversion to redistribution was especially robust among the wealthier men. Among the poorer men, support for economic redistribution was not related to strength. This partly, but not entirely, replicated an earlier study, which found that strength and cut-throat capitalism were correlated among wealthy men, while the poor, strong men actually supported redistribution—suggesting that the poorer men were just looking out for their self-interest. They might be strong, the thinking goes, but they would still need redistributive policies to get ahead in the world.
For people who aren’t satisfied by the evolutionary explanation, there could be a different connecting factor for today’s men: narcissism. “If you’re a very self-centered, self-interested person, you might be very motivated to work out in the gym and be less egalitarian,” Price said.