Researchers then arranged the photos in pairs on a kind of scientific version of the Web site "Hot or Not." Forty-two judges -- a little more than half of them women -- were asked, "In what photo is the person trying to look more attractive."
In 60 percent of the cases -- a frequency well beyond random chance -- the judges picked the high-fertility photos.
"Many things affect the clothing that women decide to put on when they leave the house, including whether they have an interview to go to or whether they're going to the library to study for an exam or what they have planned after school," Haselton said. "Just one of them is a somewhat subtle event that changes their biochemistry. And yet this change manifests itself in an observable and pretty dramatic difference in how women dress."
In one pairing, the participant wore loose-fitting jeans and clunky boots in her low-fertility photo and a skirt and cardigan in her high-fertility photo. In another, the participant appears to be wearing the same black yoga pants in both photos. She also is wearing the same sort of shirt in both photos -- a tank top. But in the low fertility photo the top is a basic, white model, while the high fertility model is a pretty color, with a slightly lower-cut neck trimmed in lace, and it's accessorized with a fancier necklace. In another pairing, the participant had donned a fringy scarf for her high-fertility photo.
The undergrads demonstrated little knowledge of the workings of ovulation and certainly weren't tracking their cycle or attempting on any conscious level to get pregnant.
Yet the women not only seemed to have paid more attention to their appearance as they approached their most fertile period, b
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Contact: Meg Sullivan
msullivan@support.ucla.edu
310-825-1046
University of California - Los Angeles
9-Oct-2006