Would male conspicuous consumption capture the female eye? Menstrual cycle effects on women's attention to status products

Lens, Inge; Driesmans, Karolien; Pandelaere, Mario; Janssens, Kim

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.06.004

Cited by 50 publications

(39 citation statements)

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“…In other words, our perceptual and memory systems are selectively tuned to encode, process, store, and retrieve information that possesses greater fitness implications. Lens, Driesmans, Pandelaere, and Janssens (2012) discovered that women were more likely to recall status‐related products (among a larger group of shown products) when in the maximally fertile phase of their ovulatory cycle. Depending on their menstrual status, women's attentional resources are differentially allocated to various evolutionarily relevant stimuli.…”

Section: The Evolutionary Roots Of Functional Areas In Cbmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary consumption

Saad

2013

J Consum Psychol

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An overview of the field of evolutionary consumption is provided. Brief summaries of disciplines within the evolutionary behavioral sciences that preceded evolutionary psychology (EP) are first offered. This is followed by a discussion of important EP principles including the domain‐specificity of the human mind, and the difference between ultimate and proximate scientific explanations. The evolutionary bases of memory, attitude formation/change, emotions, perception (our five senses), personality, and decision making are addressed next, along with specific links to consumer research. Next, I demonstrate how numerous consumer acts could be classified into one of four basal Darwinian modules: survival, reproduction (mating), kin selection, and reciprocal altruism. The paper continues with an exploration of the evolutionary roots of cultural products (e.g., song lyrics) and Darwinian happiness (along with the evolutionary etiology of maladaptive phenomena such as pathological gambling and compulsive buying). I conclude with a discussion of key epistemological benefits of Darwinizing consumer research including greater consilience, increased interdisciplinarity, and an ethos of methodological pluralism.

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Section: The Evolutionary Roots Of Functional Areas In Cbmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary consumption

Saad

2013

J Consum Psychol

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“…Of relevance to the current special issue, does the menstrual cycle manifest itself within branding-related issues? To our knowledge, the sole published paper to have tackled this link is that of Lens, Driesmans, Pandelaere, and Janssens (2012). They found that women's recall of status products (luxury brands) was greater during the fertile phase of their menstrual cycles.…”

Section: Menstrual Effects On Matingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calories, beauty, and ovulation: The effects of the menstrual cycle on food and appearance‐related consumption

2012

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The menstrual cycle has been largely ignored within the consumer research literature. Using a survey panel, women's food and appearancerelated consumption was tracked for 35 consecutive days. As predicted, food-related desires, dollars spent, and eating behaviors were greater during the luteal (non-fertile) phase, whereas appearance-related desires, dollars spent, and beautification behaviors increased during the fertile phase. Dollars spent on products unrelated to food or beautification were not significantly influenced by the menstrual cycle. Hence, women's consumption desires, preferences, and dollars spent in evolutionarily relevant product categories (food and mating) fluctuate across their ovulatory cycle. Branding-related implications are briefly discussed.

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“…For example, women in the late follicular phase of their cycle (in the days immediately preceding ovulation when risk of conception from a single act of intercourse is at its peak) report elevated levels of general attraction to men (GarverApgar et al 2006) and show increased preferences for sexually dimorphic (i.e., "masculine") faces, masculine body shapes (Little et al 2007;Penton-Voak et al 1999), "typical male behavioral displays" (Gangestad et al 2004), for the scents of symmetrical men (Gangestad and Thornhill 1998) and of men who have greater genetic (MHC) compatibility (Wedekind et al 1995), as well as for men who are socially dominant (Havlicek et al 2005) and high in creative intelligence (Haselton and Miller 2006). Women in this cycle phase have also been found to be more accurate at judging male sexual orientation (Rule et al 2011) and to pay closer attention to cues signaling status (Lens et al 2011 Many of the traits outlined above, including masculinity, dominance, and facial symmetry, are believed to be acting as signals of underlying genetic competence, which is in turn responsible for physical health, developmental stability and superior immune-responsivity (for reviews see Rhodes 2006;Roberts and Little 2008). Mating with a partner who possesses such a robust gene set increases the odds that resulting offspring will be endowed with similar genetic advantages.…”

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Menstrual Cycle Effects on Attitudes toward Romantic Kissing

Wlodarski

Dunbar

2013

Hum Nat

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Hormonal changes associated with the human menstrual cycle have been previously found to affect female mate preference, whereby women in the late follicular phase of their cycle (i.e., at higher risk of conception) prefer males displaying putative signals of underlying genetic fitness. Past research also suggests that romantic kissing is utilized in human mating contexts to assess potential mating partners. The current study examined whether women in their late follicular cycle phase place greater value on kissing at times when it might help serve mate assessment functions. Using an international online questionnaire, results showed that women in the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle felt that kissing was more important at initial stages of a relationship than women in the luteal phase of their cycle. Furthermore, it was found that estimated progesterone levels were a significant negative predictor for these ratings. KeywordsMenstrual cycle; Romantic kissing; Mate assessment; Relationships Hormonal changes associated with the human menstrual cycle have been found to have discernible effects on female sexual and mating behavior. While it has been known for some time that female sexual desire spikes in the days surrounding ovulation (Regan 1996), it has recently been discovered that preferences for certain types of mating partners also co-vary with phases of the menstrual cycle. For example, women in the late follicular phase of their cycle (in the days immediately preceding ovulation when risk of conception from a single act of intercourse is at its peak) report elevated levels of general attraction to men (GarverApgar et al. 2006) and show increased preferences for sexually dimorphic (i.e., "masculine") faces, masculine body shapes (Little et al. 2007;Penton-Voak et al. 1999), "typical male behavioral displays" (Gangestad et al. 2004), for the scents of symmetrical men (Gangestad and Thornhill 1998) and of men who have greater genetic (MHC) compatibility (Wedekind et al. 1995), as well as for men who are socially dominant (Havlicek et al. 2005) and high in creative intelligence (Haselton and Miller 2006). Women in this cycle phase have also been found to be more accurate at judging male sexual orientation (Rule et al. 2011) and to pay closer attention to cues signaling status (Lens et al. 2011 Many of the traits outlined above, including masculinity, dominance, and facial symmetry, are believed to be acting as signals of underlying genetic competence, which is in turn responsible for physical health, developmental stability and superior immune-responsivity (for reviews see Rhodes 2006;Roberts and Little 2008). Mating with a partner who possesses such a robust gene set increases the odds that resulting offspring will be endowed with similar genetic advantages. However, a negative relationship seems to exist between genetic fitness indicators such as these and behaviors associated with long-term parental investment. For example, higher testosterone levels in utero, responsible for the development o...

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Would male conspicuous consumption capture the female eye? Menstrual cycle effects on women's attention to status products

Cited by 50 publications

References 30 publications

Evolutionary consumption

Evolutionary consumption

Calories, beauty, and ovulation: The effects of the menstrual cycle on food and appearance‐related consumption

Menstrual Cycle Effects on Attitudes toward Romantic Kissing

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