Digit Ratios and Social Preferences: A Comment on Buser (2012)

Buser (2012) reports an association between the second-to-fourth digit ratio, a biomarker of the exposure to prenatal sex hormones, and behavior in several classic experimental games designed to elicit prosocial attitudes. His subjects self-report whether they have shorter, equal, or larger ring than index nger. We argue that this elicitation method is inappropriate. It generates a poor proxy for the digit ratio as it suers from measurement errors. As a result, using this variable in the regression analysis may lead to inconsistent estimates.