Are Men More Capable of Doing "Idiotic" Acts Than Women? Study Says "Yes"

Could it be the raging testosterone, or is it just that men are really the mentally weaker sex? When it comes to displaying risky behavior and pulling stunts that are considered "stupid" to the point of "idiotic", men are ahead of the pack, a recent study found. Such stunts were labeled idiotic as the perpetrators had lost their lives in an unthinking manner in doing such acts.

Researchers composed of Dennis Lendrem of Newcastle University and colleagues looked into the previous winners of the "Darwin Awards", a darkly humorous award given to people who died because of an act that is considered really stupid, and found men won almost 90 percent of the awards from the years 1995 to 2014.

In a special Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal (a lighthearted edition of the medical journal), the researchers used the Darwin Awards database to examine an idea they call male idiot theory (MIT) to see if the male species are more inclined to do risks that may be considered idiotic.

The researchers analyzed 332 cases confirmed by the Darwin Awards Committee to be true incidents, excluding 14 cases of death by adventurous couples, leaving them with 318 cases. To win a Darwin Award, the story of how the death happened must be verifiable, and the person must have shown capacity for sound judgment, while showing "an astonishing misapplication of common sense."

Of the winners, a big majority were male, comprising 88.7 per cent (282 winners) of the awardees. The remaining 36 were women.

"This finding is entirely consistent with male idiot theory (MIT) and supports the hypothesis that men are idiots and idiots do stupid things," according to Lendrem.

"Winners of the Darwin Award must eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such an idiotic manner that their action ensures one less idiot will survive. This paper reports a marked sex difference in Darwin Award winners: males are significantly more likely to receive the award than females."

There is also a possibility, though, that the makeup of Darwin Award winners is biased toward men because cases involving women may not get reported as often. Also, the researchers also considered the influence of alcohol during the carrying out of the stunt as a factor, saying "alcohol makes men feel 'bulletproof' after a few drinks, and it would be naïve to rule this out," they wrote.