Ovulation, Stimulus Discrimination, and Mate Preferences

Abstract

Past research has shown that women experience shifts in their mate preferences across their ovulatory cycle. More specifically, during ovulation (the phase of the ovulatory cycle in which conception is possible) women experience a shift in their preferences towards men that express high quality genes such as greater levels of facial masculinity and facial symmetry. These preferences have led researchers to believe that women may be more attuned to traits including masculinity and symmetry during ovulation. We aimed to test this idea by examining whether or not ovulating women were better at detecting subtle differences in facial masculinity and facial symmetry in comparison to when they were not ovulating and in comparison to women taking hormonal contraceptives. A sample of 240 participants will be included in this study consisting of 120 who are naturally cycling and 120 who are taking hormonal contraceptives. Each participant came in to the lab twice, once during high fertility (when conception is possible) and once during low fertility (when conception is not possible). Although data collection is still ongoing, we predict that ovulating women will be able to detect subtle differences in the stimuli reflecting mating cues in comparison to natural cycling women who are not ovulating and women who take hormonal contraceptives.