Does the female cycle matter? Looking at aggressive intentions after social exclusion*

Abstract

Abstract Excluded people vary in their coping with social pain. The menstrual cycle has shown to moderate experiences related to pain. We therefore investigated the influence of the menstrual cycle on aggressive intentions in response to social exclusion. Results revealed no effect of the menstrual cycle alone. However when exploratory taking dispositional social anxiety into account, we found women low in social phobia to report more aggression in response to social exclusion in the luteal than in the non-luteal phase. In this phase, they indicated a similarly high aggression level than women high in social phobia who did not differ between the luteal and non-luteal phase. These findings are discussed within the framework of evolutionary adaption.