Talent evaluating for major league scouts just got a whole lot weirder.
A new study headed by a pair of psychologists at Goldsmiths/University of London and published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, found that Japanese baseball players with short, broad faces are more likely to be skilled than their long-faced colleagues.
According to the Daily Mail, lead researchers Hikaru Tsujimura and Michael Banissy measured the facial width-to-height ratio of 104 baseball players in Japan’s professional league.
Tsujimura and Banissy tracked those players for two seasons, and came to the conclusions that the players who hit the most home runs also had the highest facial width-to-height ratio. The logic behind this correlation could be that a wider jaw is a sign of higher testosterone levels. And increased testosterone is generally associated with more physical strength and agression.
The researchers say this correlation may apply for people of all nationalities. In fact, a previous study on caucasian CEO's found that people with broader faces are more likely to run successful firms.
This isn't the first study in which the shapes of players' faces correlate with their success. Previous research indicates that NFL quarterbacks are much more likely than the average man to have symmetrical features.
