Lack of Support for Relation between Woman's Masculinity Preference, Estradiol Level & Mating Context

It has been proposed that women's preferences for male facial sexual dimorphism are positively correlated with conception probability and differ between short- and long-term mating contexts. In this study, we tested this assumption by analyzing relationships between estradiol levels to the women's preferences of male faces that were manipulated to vary in masculinity. Estradiol was measured in daily saliva samples throughout the entire menstrual cycle collected by Polish women with regular menstrual cycles. 

In our analyses, we included the three most commonly used definitions of the fertile window in the literature. After computing the overall masculinity preference of each participant and measuring hormone levels, we found that

1. the timing of ovulation varied greatly among women (between -11 and -17 days from the onset of the next menses, counting backwards), 
2. there was no relationship between daily, measured during the day of the test (N=83) or average for the cycle (N=115) estradiol levels and masculinity preferences, 
3. there were no differences in masculinity preferences between women in low- and high-conception probability phases of the cycle, and 
4. there were no differences in masculinity preferences between short- and long-term mating contexts. 

Our results do not support the idea that women's preferences for a potential sexual partner's facial masculinity fluctuate throughout the cycle.

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By: Marcinkowska UM1, Ellison PT2, Galbarczyk A3, Milkowska K3, Pawlowski B4, Thune I5, Jasienska G6.

• 1Department of Environmental Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 20 Grzegorzecka St., 31-531 Krakow, Poland. Electronic address: ummarcinkowska@gmail.com.
• 2Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Av., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
• 3Department of Environmental Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 20 Grzegorzecka St., 31-531 Krakow, Poland.
• 4Department of Human Biology, University of Wrocław, Kuźnicza 35, Wrocław, Poland.
• 5Department of Oncology, Oslo University Hospital, Ullevål, Oslo, Norway.
• 6Department of Environmental Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 20 Grzegorzecka St., 31-531 Krakow, Poland; Department of Anthropology, Yale University, 10 Sachem Street, New Haven, CT 06511-3707, USA.  

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