Scientists have found that when soldiers march in unison it not only intimidates enemies but also gives the troops a confidence boost.
Researchers found that men in the study who were asked to walk in unison judged their potential opponents as less formidable than men who didn't walk in unison.
This tendency could contribute to increased aggression among men walking in unison, said Daniel Fessler, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the researchers on the new study.
The researchers recruited 96 men and asked them to walk 800 feet alongside another man, who was actually an employee working with the researchers.
In half of the cases, the men were told to walk normally. In the other half, they were asked to walk in unison with the other man.
After walking, the men were shown a mug shot of an angry male face. The researchers asked them to estimate the man's height, his overall body size and his muscularity.
The men who had synchronised their walk rated the angry man as shorter and smaller than the men who had walked naturally.
"Modern armies all around the world have drill practice, where they march around even though marching around has nothing to do with fighting," Fessler told 'Live Science'.
The new study suggests that the act of marching itself makes the soldiers see potential enemies as less frightening.
The study is published in the journal Biology Letters.
