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Fertile women dress to impress?
(gg)
By Maggie Fox, Health
and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Women dress to impress when
they are at their most fertile, U.S. researchers said
on Tuesday in a study they say shows that signs of
human ovulation may not be as mysterious as some
scientists believe.
A study of young college women showed they frequently
wore more fashionable or flashier clothing and jewelry
when they were ovulating, as assessed by a panel of
men and women looking at their photographs.
"They tend to put on skirts instead of pants, show
more skin and generally dress more fashionably," said
Martie Haselton, a communication studies and
psychology expert at the University of California Los
Angeles who led the study.
Writing in the journal Hormones and Behavior, Haselton
and colleagues said their findings disproved the
conventional wisdom that women are unique among
animals in concealing, even from themselves, when they
are most fertile.
Some animals release powerful scents when ready to
mate, while others display skin color changes, but
human ovulation is notoriously difficult to detect.
This is attested to by the frequency of unintended
pregnancy, as well as test kits marketed to women
wishing to become pregnant but unaware of the
likeliest time to conceive.
Haselton's team said their study showed the cues are
there, even if men and women are not consciously aware
of them.
Women usually ovulate on the 15th day of their
menstrual cycles, and this day is when they are the
most fertile. Ovulation is easily detected using urine
tests, and Haselton's team used such a test to check
fertility in their study.
They asked 30 university students to come to their lab
for a test, without letting them know the nature of
the experiment. "We asked them some things about food,
for example," Haselton said in a telephone interview.
The women came back several times over the course of a
month and were photographed twice -- once in their
fertile phase and another time in their least-fertile
phase. The faces in the photographs were blacked out.
WHO LOOKS HOT?
The researchers asked 42 men and women, some older
than the volunteers, to assess these photographs by
asking, "In what photo is the person trying to look
more attractive?"
The judges chose the photograph taken during the
women's fertile phases 60 percent of the time,
Haselton said. "This is well beyond chance. They were
pretty consistent," she said.
"One of the things we found pretty interesting is that
people sort of have their personal style, almost like
their uniform," she added. "The women would show up to
the lab wearing something pretty close to what they
wore before, but embellished."
For example, one woman wore loose knit leggings and a
tank top in both photos. "In her high fertility
photograph, she would be wearing a very pretty tank
top and she was wearing more jewelry. The difference
was quite subtle," Haselton said.
The fertile women did not necessarily dress more
provocatively, Haselton noted. "We did see a little
bit more skin. It was my impression that the women
were just dressing a little bit more fashionably but
not sexier."
Haselton also was interested to note what did not
happen.
"There's a popular notion that when women approach
menstrual onset, they get out their bloated clothes
and they pull out their sweats," she said. "But we
didn't find that to be the case."
Haselton's team had earlier reported that women were
more likely to flirt and look at attractive men when
ovulating.
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