Masculine physical features correlated with cortisol protection?

[FallenApple]

There has been studies showing that high testosterone protects against cortisol.

Is that why there's also a correlation between height and income? Because extremely competitive high level jobs would easily destroy a normal person's health unless they have high testosterone to protect against this. This is regarding males. Not sure that system works well for the female endocrine system.

 

[Grinkle]

Is that why there's also a correlation between height and income?

IMO tall people are relatively more often judged as likely-to-be-effective than shorter people.

 

[Tom.G]

IMO just the (often unconscious) intimidation of size allows them to get more co-operation/less resistance. Even women may take advantage of that. I know one that is solidly built but an inch or so shorter than I am. When she is in her 'work attire', taller shoes, etc, I tend to overtly disagree with her a bit less.
(was a bit of a shock whe I realized this!)

 

[Laroxe]

We don't need to be protected against cortisol, its an extremely important hormone involved in lots of physiological processes and helps us deal with the stresses of living. Stress is best thought of as anything that requires physiological adaptations, it describes anything that makes demands upon us that requires action, cold weather, infections, injuries as well as social demands or pressures to perform actions are all stressors. Its a mistake to think of it as the same as anxiety, stress is an extremely important motivator, without stress you probably wouldn't get out of bed in the morning, and in fact the morning is when we produce the most, just before we wake up, to prepare for the day.
Testosterone and cortisol tend to have very different effects, cortisol releases energy stores and improves cellular metabolism to make us ready to act, testosterone shifts resources into tissue building. All hormones have powerful physiological effects and excess or low production can influence health but like many others cortisol is essential to health, people without it require to take it every day and are advised when faced with more serious demands to take more. A great deal of what is written about the negative effects of cortisol is highly misleading.
No single hormone controls either our behaviour or appearance, they may be part of a number of different influences and our behaviour and peoples judgements always occur in a context.