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REVISITING THE CRIMINOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF EXPOSURE TO FETAL TESTOSTERONE: A META‐ANALYSIS OF THE 2D:4D DIGIT RATIO *
Author(s) -
PRATT TRAVIS C.,
TURANOVIC JILLIAN J.,
CULLEN FRANCIS T.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/1745-9125.12115
Subject(s) - moderation , biosocial theory , psychology , digit ratio , argument (complex analysis) , perspective (graphical) , odds , meta analysis , testosterone (patch) , proposition , multilevel model , social psychology , medicine , logistic regression , statistics , epistemology , computer science , philosophy , mathematics , personality , artificial intelligence
As criminology has become more interdisciplinary in recent years, biosocial criminology has earned a place at the table. Although this perspective comes in many forms, one important proposition has gained increasing attention: that the 2D:4D finger digit ratio—a purported physical biomarker for exposure to fetal testosterone—is related to criminal, aggressive, and risky/impulsive behavior. Strong claims in the literature have been made for this link even though the findings seem to be inconsistent. To establish the empirical status of this relationship, we subjected this body of work to a meta‐analysis. Our multilevel analyses of 660 effect size estimates drawn from 47 studies (14,244 individual cases) indicate a small overall effect size (mean r = .047). Moderator analyses indicate that this effect is rather “general” across methodological specifications—findings that are at odds with theoretical propositions that specify the importance of exposure to fetal testosterone in predicting criminal and analogous behavior later in life. We conclude with a call for exercising caution over embracing the findings from one or two studies and instead highlight the importance of systematically organizing the full body of literature on a topic before making decisions about what does, and what does not, predict criminal and analogous behavior.