The Impact of Reproductive Value and Salience on Women's Interest in Short-term Mating during the Ovulation Cycle
Item
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Title
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The Impact of Reproductive Value and Salience on Women's Interest in Short-term Mating during the Ovulation Cycle
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:4501e7a8a4df:10780
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identifier
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11050
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Creator
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Pulizzi, Allison Leonora,
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Contributor
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Curtis Hardin | Glen Hass
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Experimental psychology | Behavioral psychology | Social psychology | Womens studies | mating strategy | ovulation | reproduction | reproductive value | sexual interest | short-term mating
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Abstract
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The current research tests the assertion that selection may have guided women's mating strategy to increase the probability of conceiving and improve the offspring's chances of survival. Across two experiments, women's sexual interest in short-term mates increased when reproduction was cognitively salient and short-term mates were attractive, and did so as a function of both current conception probability and women's mate status and women's reproductive value. In Experiment 1, conception probability predicted short-term sexual interest, but only when reproduction was experimentally manipulated to be cognitively salient. In addition, although conception probability predicted sexual interest in short-term mates regardless of reproduction salience among single women, conception probability predicted sexual interest among women in long-term sexual relationships only when reproduction was salient. In Experiment 2, women were more sexually interested in attractive than unattractive short-term mates, and the effect was stronger to the degree that women were likely to conceive at the time of the experiment as indicated by days away from ovulation. In addition, replicating results of Experiment 1, although sexual interest among single women increased with conception probability regardless of short-term mate attractiveness, conception probability predicted sexual interest among women in long-term sexual relationships for the attractive but not the unattractive short-term mate. Findings suggest that women's interest in short-term mating varies in order to capitalize on reproductive success.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
