Military commanders, who from ancient times forced soldiers to drill to the rhythmic beat of drums, intuitively understood what is now scientifically proven: stepping in step makes men more aggressive.
UCLA anthropologists Daniel Fessler and Colin Holbrook conducted a simple and elegant experiment*. They attracted 96 students to participate. Each was assigned a partner who pretended to be a member of the study, although in fact he was part of the team of experimenters. Half of the partners, walking with their partners along the same route of about 800 steps, adjusted the step so as to keep pace, the second half did not.
After the walk, the participants were asked to take a series of tests, most of which served as a distraction to hide from them the true subject of the study. In the end, everyone was shown a photograph of the face of an angry man and asked to guess how tall and what build this person might be.
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It turned out that those who kept pace rated the physical strength of the “object”, determined by height and physique, lower than the participants in the control group, in particular, in their imagination, he was on average an inch shorter.
According to the authors, under more severe conditions of the experiment, that is, if more people marched together and if they did it regularly, as they do in the police and in the army, the result would certainly have been even more impressive.
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Based on dozens of previous studies, the authors interpret the revealed pattern as follows: by mentally reducing the power of a potential enemy, people are more likely to believe that they can defeat him, therefore, they are more willing to engage in confrontation.
This is not the first confirmation of anthropologists’ observations. Two years ago, another study showed that those who walked in step expressed a greater willingness to destroy insects (tree lice) than their non-drilled comrades.
“The ability to move in sync indicates to a person that he is part of a combat effective commonwealth,” comments Fessler.
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Apparently, this is why military and police forces around the world still practice combat exercises, although modern wars are fought by technical means, and not by bayonet attacks, to maintain morale. Which, on the one hand, is good, but on the other hand, it is alarming, because a soldier remains a soldier not only when he is on duty.
In this regard, I recall a story from the memoirs of the composer Sergei Prokofiev. One day he was returning home late at night, walking along a deserted alley, his steps echoing from the walls. A military man in uniform was walking in the same direction as him and almost immediately adjusted to his step. Prokofiev decided to play a little trick, lost his pace and went into syncope. The military again adjusted. Prokofiev went into syncopation again… And so it went on until their paths parted.
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It turns out that people with experience in the so-called power structures, getting used to walking in step, thus support themselves in a state of increased “combat readiness”. At least men: how women behave in such conditions, Fessler and Holbrook did not study.
* Biology Letters, август 2014. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1xq3x5pt#page-3