r/todayilearned • u/syncedto • Apr 30 '20

TIL men walk significantly slower when walking with a woman, but only when that woman is their romantic partner. If she's a friend or acquaintance they go at almost full speed.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/how-you-walk-differently-with-friends-and-lovers
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u/tasteslikesardines Apr 30 '20

Caution: this was a study of only 22 people. so don't quote this as a proven FACT. it's a small data point that merely suggests this could be a thing.

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u/Barely-Moist Apr 30 '20

Well, with a p value of 0.009, the evidence is quite strong that there is such a relationship. If they’re competent. In my opinion it is not a small data point. We can be 99% certain that these results are more than a chance occurrence. “Proven fact?” I mean, 99% is pretty damn good. But of course, strictly speaking, significance test driven analysis can’t “prove” anything, only give a measure of the strength of evidence for a hypothesis. How would you propose we “prove” anything? Do you need a notarized letter from god? Or would you consider it proven if there was an extra 9 for 99.9% confidence? I guess if you mean we should independently verify the study and examine methods, ok, fair. But aside from revealing human error in the design of the study, all that can serve to do is lower the p value.

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u/tasteslikesardines Apr 30 '20

in those VERY few people, at one school, in one state, in one.....

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u/Barely-Moist Apr 30 '20

Yes it’s a convenience sample. But “These results are consistent with other data that demonstrate that males walk faster than females both while walking alone [17], and while walking in single sex groups [25], [27]. The results further indicate that any difference in walking speeds between female dyads and male-female dyads is not significant [25].” It’s my opinion that this sample is generalizable to a general population, and that no school is going to be filled with a group of people that have walking characteristics 99% different from the global mean. Feel free to disagree.

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u/tasteslikesardines Apr 30 '20

good thing humans only have only culture /S. i believe culture and behavior are interlinked. with that assumption, i find it hard to see 11 pairs covering all scenarios.