Steaks and lamb chops calm down stressed out men by bringing out their caveman instincts

Steaks and lamb chops calm down stressed out men by bringing out their caveman instincts 

Women who want to calm down their husbands after a stressful day at the office should serve him a big steak, scientists said today.

Contrary to popular opinion that a hunk of red meat may make men aggressive, experts said it actually has a calming affect.

Psychologists said they were shocked by research findings which show that far from bringing out the 'caveman instinct' in modern men, seeing meat lowers any aggressive tendencies because it reminds males of friends and family at meal time.

The researchers, from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said seeing meat provokes a sense of non-agression that could be related to family feasting among the earliest humans.

Lead researcher Frank Kachanoff admitted he was 'surprised' by the findings.

He said the idea that meat would prompt aggressive behaviour makes sense as it would have helped our primate ancestors with hunting. 

Kachanoff believed that humans may therefore have evolved an innate predisposition to respond aggressively towards meat. 

He cited the fact that some sports coaches feed their players big hunks of red meat before a game in the hope of pumping up their aggression.

Images of a grunting or growling animal snarling at anyone who tries to take their meat away also reinforced the idea.

However, experiments led by Mr Kachanoff found that the opposite was true and that the sight of meat had a calming affect on  males and made them less agressive.

He conducted psychological tests in which aggression levels were tested among 82 men who were asked to look at a variety of photographs, some of which featured cooked meat.

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How it works: Apparently our ancestors would be calm when they saw meat, as they would be surrounded by friends and family at meal time. The same goes for modern man

The volunteers were told they could 'punish' a colleague if he made a mistake during a simple sorting task involving the pictures.

The researchers believed the pictures of meat would prompt the participants to inflict more punishments, but found the opposite was true.

Mr Kachanoff said: 'We used imagery of meat that was ready to eat. In terms of behaviour, with the benefit of hindsight, it would make sense that our ancestors would be calm, as they would be surrounded by friends and family at meal time.

'I would like to run this experiment again, using hunting images.'  Mr Kachanoff said he was inspired by research on priming and aggression, that has shown that just looking at an object which is learned to be associated with aggression, such as a gun, can make someone more likely to behave aggressively.

He said: 'I wanted to know if we might respond aggressively to certain stimuli in our environment not because of learned associations, but because of an innate predisposition. I wanted to know if just looking at the meat would suffice to provoke an aggressive behavior.'   

Evolutionary experts believe it is useful to look at innate reflexes in order to understand trends in society and personal behavior.

They said this latest research was important because it looked at ways society may influence environmental factors to decrease the likelihood of aggressive behavior.