Women's evaluations of other women's natural body odor depend on target's fertility status

Abstract

A large research literature indicates that men perceive women as more attractive when they are at high fertility than at low fertility within the ovulatory cycle. However, it remains unclear whether women also perceive women as more attractive at high fertility. This study examined women's ratings of samples of natural body odor collected from naturally-cycling women at high and low fertility within the cycle and from hormonal contraceptive-using women at mid-cycle. Like men, women rated naturally-cycling women's high-fertility scent samples as more attractive than their low-fertility samples. Women rated hormonal contraceptive (HC) users' scent samples as more attractive than naturally-cycling women's high- and low-fertility samples, though the difference between HC and high-fertility samples was statistically significant only when raters were treated as the unit of analysis. These findings reveal a potentially important role for scent communication in women's perceptions of other women and are consistent with the notion that the ovulatory cycle could influence women's interactions with one another. The findings also highlight the need for rigorous investigations of the possible impacts of hormonal contraception on women's attractiveness and social relationships with other women.