A photo from open sources
One theory in evolutionary psychology claims that attraction of heterosexual women to a certain type of men directly related to their menstrual cycle. However recent study at the University of Southern California puts this theory is in doubt. Over the past 20 years many psychologists actively publish research on what type Men are preferred by women during the period of ovulation. Long time it was believed that women choose dominant partners. That is, in the eyes of women during ovulation look more attractive men with a low timbre, defined smell, manly face and body structure. It is these features, as experts believe, indicate the genetic suitability of the partner. Researchers suggest that when women ovulate, they subconsciously pick up all these natural signals talking about “good genes” for men. In an evolutionary sense, this subconscious ability helps a woman choose a genetically strong father for his unborn child. Wendy Wood, professor of psychology from University of Southern California, doubted this theory and decided figure it out on your own. She carefully examined the data 45 published and 13 unpublished studies on this subject and conducted its own statistical investigation, and then published her findings in the journal Emotion Review. Wendy believes that studies that spanned 10-day the fertile phase of women is not objective enough. She sure the phase of each individual woman is individual. Therefore wendy believes that despite the fact that women are biological creatures, the idea that the menstrual cycle somehow affects their sexual preferences, just does not stand up to any criticism in research literature. However, not all specialists share the view of Wendy. For example, Stephen Gangestad, evolutionary psychologist and author of many studies on this topic, categorically not I agree with her conclusions. He thinks Wendy’s findings are too superficial and not justified. “She relies on weak arguments and discards the facts, “said Stephen. Stephen also pointed to another a meta-analysis recently published in the journal Psychological Bulletin “, the author of which relied on the same materials as Wendy, but came to a different conclusion. Christopher Schmid, professor of biostatistics, believes that this is not so rare a phenomenon when researchers, working with the same material, eventually come to different conclusions. “When we consider picture, we use only one of our five senses. I think, that Wendy was guided by the same principle in her conclusions. Studying the data, she forgot that there are a lot of important nuances in this very sensitive and interesting topic, “said Professor. Schmid believes that in order to understand female preferences, you should not strictly divide everything into white or black. Psychological research in this area should take into account biology factors, culture and traditions of each individual woman. Only after of this we can figure out what type of man she prefers for conception of their offspring.
