Abstract
Previous research has documented shifts in women’s attractions to their romantic partner and to men other than their partner across the ovulation cycle, contingent on the degree to which her partner displays hypothesized indicators of high-fitness genes. The current study set out to replicate and extend this finding. Forty-one couples in which the woman was naturally cycling participated. Female partners reported their feelings of in-pair attraction and extra-pair attraction on two occasions, once on a low-fertility day of the cycle and once on a high-fertility day of the cycle just prior to ovulation. Ovulation was confirmed using luteinizing hormone tests. We collected two measures of male partner sexual attractiveness. First, the women in the study rated their partner’s sexual attractiveness. Second, we photographed the partners and had the photos independently rated for attractiveness. Shifts in women’s in-pair attractions across the cycle were significantly moderated by women’s ratings of partner sexual attractiveness, such that the less sexually attractive women rated their partner, the less in-pair attraction they reported at high fertility compared with low fertility (partial r = .37, p dir = .01). Shifts in women’s extra-pair attractions across the cycle were significantly moderated by third-party ratings of partner attractiveness, such that the less attractive the partner was, the more extra-pair attraction women reported at high relative to low fertility (partial r = −.33, p dir = .03). In line with previous findings, we found support for the hypothesis that the degree to which a woman’s romantic partner displays indicators of high-fitness genes affects women’s attractions to their own partner and other men at high fertility.
Highlights
The window of fertility within the ovulation cycle lasts for just a few short days prior to ovulation [1]
Follow-up analyses revealed that when ratings of partner sexual attractiveness were one standard deviation below the mean, women reported significantly less inpair attraction at high fertility than at low fertility, F (1, 38) = 4.75, pdir = .02, partial g2 =
Follow-up analyses revealed that when women’s partners were one standard deviation below the mean on rated attractiveness, women reported significantly more extra-pair attraction at high fertility than at low fertility, F (1, 34) = 3.74, pdir = .04, partial g2 =
Summary
The window of fertility within the ovulation cycle lasts for just a few short days prior to ovulation [1]. One specific hypothesis is that women’s attraction to men who display cues indicating that they possess genes that would have contributed to offspring viability or attractiveness in ancestral environments (i.e., high-fitness genes) are heightened on fertile days of the cycle [2,3,4,5] In support of this hypothesis, a large number of studies document systematic shifts in women’s mate preferences across the ovulatory cycle. We included ratings of men’s bodies as well as their faces, with the prediction that third-party assessments of body and facial attractiveness would moderate shifts in women’s attractions across the cycle in similar ways
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