New research reveals that guitar skills in extreme metal music are more linked to male competition and status than to attracting mates. The study, focusing on heterosexual male guitarists, suggests that technical proficiency in guitar playing serves more as a display of dominance among peers.
No, no, all it tells you “single white middle class dudes who have too much time to spare for online surveys and consider themselves to be epic guitar players are also X”.
Now, I’d say X and them thinking they’re an epic metal guitar player are both symptoms of something else. And so is their interest in weird online studies.
“Controlling” for cofonding factors on this sample is ridiculous, and doesn’t add any external validity to your study.
TL;DR: weirdos online are weird, but in this example we only picked weirdos who think they’re good at playing guitar. Great study!
P.S. it looks like you can publish any BS you want in psychology, and then write a long article where you pretend to be a scientist and you were always interested in “evolutionary effects of music on mating success”.
You know what, this researcher is just another weirdo, but payed for exercising his twisted fantasies.