No evidence that inbreeding avoidance is up-regulated during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle

Abstract

Mate preferences and mating-related behaviors are hypothesized to change over the menstrual cycle in ways that function to increase reproductive fitness. Results of recent large-scale studies suggest that many of these hormone-linked behavioral changes are less robust than was previously thought. One specific hypothesis that has not yet been subject to a large-scale test is the proposal that women's preference for associating with male kin is down-regulated during the ovulatory (high-fertility) phase of the menstrual cycle. Consequently, we used a longitudinal design to investigate the relationship between changes in women's steroid hormone levels and their perceptions of faces experimentally manipulated to possess kinship cues (Study 1). Analyses suggested that women viewed men's faces displaying kinship cues more positively (i.e., more attractive and trustworthy) when estradiol-to-progesterone ratio was high. Since estradiol-to-progesterone ratio is positively associated with conception risk during the menstrual cycle, these results directly contradict the hypothesis that women's preference for associating with male kin is down-regulated during the ovulatory (highfertility) phase of the menstrual cycle. Study 2 employed a daily diary approach and found no evidence that women reported spending less time in the company of male kin or thought about male kin less often during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle.Thus, neither study found evidence that inbreeding avoidance is up-regulated during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle.

Assessing Ego-Centered Social Networks in formr: A Tutorial

“…Impressive examples of such designs, implemented in formr, can be found in Borschel et al (2019) and in Greischel et al (2016Greischel et al ( , 2018, who investigated how social relationships, identity, and personality change in young adults during times of residential and international mobility. Another longitudinal extension of the ego-centered social-network design implemented in formr was used by Holzleitner et al (2019), who investigated whether women tend to avoid male kin during their fertile phase. Here, names were not elicited in name generators but through experience sampling of daily contact with people, in which frequently mentioned names were then rated in depth after the conclusion of the experience-sampling period.…”

“…For instance, participants might be unable to correctly recall all network members asked about in the instructions and/or be biased toward listing people they have stronger bonds with (Marsden, 1990). Where possible, such issues might be addressed by having participants report their interactions on a daily basis using diary designs (e.g., Holzleitner et al, 2019) or by additionally relying on objective measures such as mobile phone data (e.g., Eagle et al, 2009). In addition to the problems arising from the self-report nature of ego-centered networks, previous studies have shown that the way the network is asked about can heavily influence which people are considered to be part of the network and thereby the composition, size, and density of the reported network.…”

Ovulatory cycle shifts in human mating psychology - Implications for the evolution of concealed ovulation and female oestrus

“…Although so far, preliminary evidence shows no changes in inbreeding-avoidance across women's ovulatory cycles (Holzleitner et al, 2017), given that organisms need to adaptively allocate resources to multiple adaptive problems, it would be an interesting venture for future research to incorporate more adaptive problems into the predictions of the MPSH and test its specificity.…”