Their physical prowess, as demonstrated through a contest of strength

“Sure, maybe psychologists don’t care about gymless shirt picks. But they care about social rankings, pecking orders, dominance hierarchies, that kinda thing,” you say. “So let’s get people to flex on each other. Literally.” Vishal shoots you a puzzled look, and you hold up a hand, indicating patience. “Here’s the plan. We’re going to get the guys in a room together, and then they’re going to arm wrestle each other. Then, we show the videos to the girls.”

“I get it, so the buff blokes get the girls,” Vishal nods. “I like it!”

“All we need now is to make it an experiment. We need to add some randomization. Here’s my idea,” you say. “We get a confederate to be the other guy in the arm wrestling match. And we randomize whether our confederate tries his hardest to beat each guy in our study, or whether he throws the match.”

“Nice, so we get to see what happens to a wimpy-ass dude’s sexual value when he suddenly seems a stud for beating a jacked dude? That’s a winner to me,” Vishal says.

“Language, man,” you chuckle, and the two of you share a good laugh. “Thank God we don’t have to actually run this thing. We can just make up something and we’ll get a good grade so long as it sounds good.”

“But damn, wouldn’t it be fun to be one of those guys getting a match thrown in your favor? All the chicks you would get…”

“We don’t know if you’d get the chicks,” you say. “That’s the point of running our experiment. Also, don’t you have a girlfriend?”

“Minor details,” Vishal says, waving his hand.