A Preliminary Investigation Into Individual Differences that Predict Men’s Preferences for Cues to Fertility in Women’s Faces

Purpose

Women have evolved to conceal overt signs of ovulatory status. Evidence shows that men find high fertility women to be more attractive than low fertility women, suggesting that men may be sensitive to subtle cues to fertility. However, studies have yet to explain the variance in men’s sensitivity to such cues. The present study aimed to identify psychological variables that predict men’s preferences for ovulatory cues in women’s faces in an attempt to provide support for or against three hypotheses for concealed ovulation: The Paternal Investment Hypothesis, The Reduced Infanticide Hypothesis, and the Cuckoldry Hypothesis. We also tested whether men with lower sociosexual orientation show a higher preference for cues to ovulation than men with a higher sociosexual orientation.

Methods

Heterosexual men (N = 182) completed a survey that assessed levels of various mating market traits, which were used to predict scores on a face preference task comprised of fertile-phase and non-fertile-phase images of the same women.

Results

Although men did prefer the faces of women near ovulation more than when they were photographed at other times of the menstrual cycle, the three main hypotheses tested were not supported. However, sociosexuality did negatively predict preference for the high-fertility faces among single participants.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that single men who are lower in sociosexuality may benefit from discriminating between fertile and non-fertile women. Future research directions regarding different ovulatory cue stimuli and mechanisms of cue detection are discussed.