Males are hereditarily aggressive creatures. Coursing through the body of a male is a hormone called testosterone. This hormone is what causes what are commonly known as the “manly” aspects of being human: the deep voice, the facial hair, and societally known, the recklessness. Males are accepted as being dominant creatures that can use their aggression when faced with a challenge. Numerous studies, including first one by Mast and McAndrew that looks to link listening to heavy metal music and an increase in testosterone. This first study was performed as a laboratory study with hot sauce and water presented to the participants, who were 35 college age students. The subjects were placed in a room with “violent” heavy metal music playing and were asked to pour as much hot sauce in the cups as they wanted, on one condition. The subjects were told that the next person would have to drink the solution that they made. The subjects were shown to put more hot sauce in when listening to the heavy metal music than when not listening to metal. This data presents no real results without the testing of the sweat of the individuals: a testosterone level test. This test would, in theory, show the increase in testosterone when listening to heavy metal music versus silence. However, the tests were inconclusive, and did not show any data with correlation to the hot sauce test. Therefore, this test was unable to prove the link between listening to heavy metal music and an increase in testosterone. The hot sauce by itself is subject to the will of the college age men, who could have just dropped more in as to be funny in response to their own testosterone-filled nature. The test was able to then prove that men themselves can be violent, it is not the music that affects their levels of violence.
The next study concerning the patterns of aggressiveness in males is a study done in France by Recours, Assaguel, and Trujillo. This study particularly mentions 333 known heavy metal fans, with 87.85% of them being men, which equates to 292 of the participants. This study is very comprehensive in its nature, while before they do the testing of aggression and other factors associated with listening to the music itself, they test the subjects first for any pre-existing medical conditions such as anxiety and depression. Very low numbers were reported for these conditions, only 27.55% recorded clinical anxiety problems and only 11.17% recorded having symptoms of medical depression. This means that the rest of the data in the study is minimally affected by previous mental affliction and can be counted as valid. The study eventually yielded results that reflect upon the culture of the entirety of western metal fans. The study group was all people, predominately male, who claimed to be die-hard fans of heavy metal music across many different backgrounds of education and age. This study yielded that very few, in fact, negligible amounts of people chose to listen to and attend metal music concerts for violence. The study also publishes the fact that those who tend to take the violent nature from the music and culture take it from the paraphernalia, not the music itself. The violent images and tendencies—moshing—generally are the causes of violent nature of the metal fans; they go with the crowd and are excited by visual stimuli. The fans are truly fans of the music, as it is appreciated just so, but they are violent and full of testosterone as a culture.
The next study concerning the patterns of aggressiveness in males is a study done in France by Recours, Assaguel, and Trujillo. This study particularly mentions 333 known heavy metal fans, with 87.85% of them being men, which equates to 292 of the participants. This study is very comprehensive in its nature, while before they do the testing of aggression and other factors associated with listening to the music itself, they test the subjects first for any pre-existing medical conditions such as anxiety and depression. Very low numbers were reported for these conditions, only 27.55% recorded clinical anxiety problems and only 11.17% recorded having symptoms of medical depression. This means that the rest of the data in the study is minimally affected by previous mental affliction and can be counted as valid. The study eventually yielded results that reflect upon the culture of the entirety of western metal fans. The study group was all people, predominately male, who claimed to be die-hard fans of heavy metal music across many different backgrounds of education and age. This study yielded that very few, in fact, negligible amounts of people chose to listen to and attend metal music concerts for violence. The study also publishes the fact that those who tend to take the violent nature from the music and culture take it from the paraphernalia, not the music itself. The violent images and tendencies—moshing—generally are the causes of violent nature of the metal fans; they go with the crowd and are excited by visual stimuli. The fans are truly fans of the music, as it is appreciated just so, but they are violent and full of testosterone as a culture.
The culmination of research from these two different sources spanning the spectrum of males across western civilization both come down to the same point: heavy metal music is not violent, metal heads are. Men are inherently violent when put in a group of other alpha level creatures; both of these studies clearly show that any violence acted out by the fans is done out of community, not simply by listening to the music. The music as an entity is non-violent meaning it cannot cause violence even if it may be the signature sound for a culture of violent men.