What a waist of time! I just don’t get psychologists who do this kind of studies.

This is true of men also. I always wear my flashiest grill when ejaculating.

Though I agree that it can be difficult to be objective in these kinds of studies, I don't think it should be rejected outright. I guess there could be a problem with assuming that flashy jewelry and fashionable clothes are a sign of attracting a mate.

But without knowing exactly how the study was conducted, it is hard to what the variables are, no? Could you expand on your thoughts, Samhita?

Many mammals exhibit special behaviours when they are ovulating, how are we any different?

let's all flashback to stats 101 "correlation is not causation" . Although I bet if you looked at the data differently one would find a correlation between PMS breakouts and increased makeup/jewelry.

"correlation is not causation"
Can't agree with you more liontamer, BUT I'm not sure the authors of the study were claiming causation, or was it the reporter who wrote the story? The difference is often what is lost in translation when scientific studies are reported by general media. I have witnessed this in person several times

I agree that this may be yet another really sloppy study.
However, I do know that I tend to want sex even more when I am ovulating. So, yeah, I probably do dress a little sassier, because I am feeling a little sassier.

For me, this is one of those things that has a ring of truth to it and does indeed dovetail with what we know about sexual dimorphism and behavior. That said, I agree that there are far too many variables in the study to even begin speculating on causation, let alone allow for any real discussion of the apparent correlation.

Ultimately, though, I fail to see the utility of this study. People are organisms. I don't find this study any more useful than one that notes the correllation between eating food and living. What's the point?

And I suppose that's really the question, isn't it? Why was this study performed in the first place? What were the researchers hoping to demonstrate? That, I'm afraid, isn't readily apparent, but should be.

1) Sample size of 30? Okay, riiiight.

2) Some women have periods that last 5-7 days, or more than 3 days with considerable residual blood. It is understandable if one wouldn’t want to risk their better clothes. Or would want to use their better clothes while they can.

3) The pain of PMS, which for some women can be a few days, may not leave a woman so compelled to be all putting on her best clothing.

Why was the study performed? (metaquestion - why ask such questions?) The journal is called "Hormones and Behaviour." Isn't it obvious that Haselton was curious about the behavior of human females during ovulation? It seems this study posits an uncomfortable result for some. I note that the lead researcher is female. If you're really curious, why don't you ask Dr. Haselton yourself? BTW, it took all of 5 seconds with google to find Haselton's website at UCLA. She has a research page that talks about her research interests.

It's strange to see criticism of the psychological study of feminine behavior on a feminist website. Perhaps we could learn something useful through such studies. Isn't feministing all about human behavior?

As for PMS, with the proven safety of continuous contraception, it puzzles me why any women with PMS would continue to suffer through it, unless she was trying to conceive. Go on the continuous plan, and every day is the same, hormonally. Female ob/gyns have been doing it for decades.

My big concerns:

1) Too many other variables could be influencing this which weren't isolated.

2) trying to assess someone's dressing style is rather subjective.

3) sample size is, in my opinion, way too small.

It's possible this is correct, but it makes me suspicious.

I agree that the sample size is too small to draw any real results from, however, the result drawn makes sense to me: when I feel good, I like to dress my best. Conversely, if I don't feel good, I tend not to dress "up". So it makes sense that if, hormonally, I feel good, I'll dress well. To paraphrase tankerton, if I feel sexy, I dress sexy. Then I have more chance of having my desires recognized by the people I'm trying to attract and, maybe, fulfilled. (not my desire for children/insemination, but certainly the desire for sex)

I wear skirts when all my jeans are dirty. I also seem to do my laundry every 3 or 4 weeks. Could this be an alternate explanation to this study?

Why was the study performed? (metaquestion - why ask such questions?) The journal is called "Hormones and Behaviour." Isn't it obvious that Haselton was curious about the behavior of human females during ovulation?

Thanks, genius!

Dude, we need to go beyond the obvious. Why this particular behavior, with such subjective measures and data points? Why such a small sample size?

And I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that psycho-sexual dimorphism is all the rage right now. Wanna get attention as a researcher? Put together a hasty and subjective study that will reach a "controversial"--although obvious--conclusion.

BTW, I certainly didn't take issue with the study's conclusion. On the contrary, I'm pretty sure the study has a lot of truth to it.

But ask yourself, does this study really expand our repertoire of knowledge about sex difference, or does it rather expand the researcher's public profile?

Furious[T] - But ask yourself, does this study really expand our repertoire of knowledge about sex difference, or does it rather expand the researcher's public profile?

....and expand some market research for the fashion industry about marketing certain types of clothing/accessories.

Cynical? moi?

When I'm ovulating, i tend to wear big warm shirts and pants. I wanna be comfy. And I really don't get more horny because of it. I am equally horny!

BTW, Happy National Coming Out Day!

OK, I just want to point out that I'm NOT necessarily defending this study. But 30 research subjects can be a significant sample size.

There is no such thing as a perfect study, sometimes all the variables cannot be accounted for in behavioral observations. Hopefully this woman will take her preliminary findings and use them as a jumping off point.

Ok I'll pipe down now.

I agree with Seriously. The Central Limit Theorem is the thing in statistics that explains why you only need a sample size of about 30 to get a reasonable picture of what the sampling distribution of the mean looks like. Obviously a larger sample size will give more accurate results, but 30 is an okay starting point.

Also, it's not like one person sat there judging whether (s)he thought the women were dressing "more fashionably" or however they put it. There were 42 people looking at the pictures of the 30 women; they didn't return an earth-shattering proportion of women who were dressing "flashier," just more than chance. The last half of the article (where they actually describe the methodology) is much less dramatic than the opening few paragraphs.

They didn't go into detail about their math but I'd be interested in seeing how they tested their hypothesis, from a statistics point of view. Besides, it would help me study for my midterm!

I don't know about any other women but when I am not ovulating I am having bloaty, icky PMS. All I want to wear when I have PMS is less comfy clothes that accomodate the ickyness. Not necessarily stylish, skirts, heels, etc.

There may be something to this but it may not be specifically related to the ovulation period itself.

Just a thought.

Am I the only one who remembers a series on the Discovery Channel years ago that featured this? It also covered the "sperm competition" theory (which definitely makes sense to me).

I think they conducted the former experiment in a German disco...

Its not about PMS and Why the study was conducted

Hi all - Very interesting comments!

Three quick points:

1. Why was the study conducted? When you do a study as a researcher, you are in a difficult position. If you DON'T look for sex differences, or you don't think that women might have their own special processing systems that make them unique from men, you are accused of bias. If you do look for sex differences, you can be accused of trying to justify the traditional dichotomy of viewing men and women as different. In this case, its clear from past research that women feel sexier during high fertility, so a corollary prediction is they might dress sexier. This goes against the long standing view in biology that ovulation is completely concealed in humans.

2. The effect has nothing to do with PMS. The participants completed their low fertility phase 3-10 days before their period. There were no effects within the low fertility phase (i.e., clothing did not change between days 3-10 before the period).
The main difference was between fertile and infertile (pre-period) phases of the menstrual cycle.

3. Why a small sample? These studies are time consuming to run. The fact that an effect was found even with such a small sample suggests that this is quite a noticeable effect that is occuring!