Jess Hardiman
New research has found a link between women’s heart rate and... um, committing crimes.
Yep, that’s according to a study that’s just been published in the journal PLOS One, titled ‘Lower autonomic arousal as a risk factor for criminal offending and unintentional injuries among female conscripts’.
The team of researchers in Sweden said it’s previously been a topic of investigation among men, but not women (a scenario we’re all too familiar with, amirite?).
Delving into the lives of 12,499 women – all of whom had joined the Swedish military between 1958 and 1994 at the age of around 18 - they claimed their findings could be a huge breakthrough in predicting ‘future female crime’.
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“Intervention and prevention efforts for crime typically focus on structural and social-level risk factors, but also individual-level risk factors such as personality traits and behaviors,” the team said in the paper.
“However, to improve prediction and prevention strategies further, we may need to consider additional individual-level biological risk factors for crime.”
The research found that those with a resting heart rate (RHR) below 69 beats per minute (BPM) were 35 percent more likely to have a criminal conviction, compared to their counterparts with a BPM over 83.
“Lower autonomic arousal is a well-known correlate of criminal offending and other risk-taking behaviours in men, but few studies have investigated this association in women,” the scientists wrote.
“The reported findings have potential implications for the prediction of future female crime.”
The data showed that lower RHR, measured at conscription, was associated with an increased risk of ‘any criminal offending’.
However, the researchers stressed that an association with lower RHR and ‘violent crime’ was ‘not statistically significant’.
They also said there was a link between heart rate and ‘unintentional injuries’, writing: “Our finding that lower resting heart rate was associated with an elevated risk of unintentional injuries among female conscripts is notable in light of prior evidence that lower resting heart rate is also associated with a tendency to engage in extreme sports, such as skydiving, and with risky jobs such as bomb disposal work.”
Discussing the ‘limitations of the study’, the team explained how the female conscripts were not likely to be ‘representative of the overall female population’, given their military background.
They also said heart rate was measured using an arm-cuff monitor, which may have been ‘less sensitive’ than a laboratory assessment where electrodes are attached to limbs or the torso.