A novel study suggests that women have very different reactions towards strange men in their menstrual cycles. Women are more mistrustful of men, when at their most fertile, they see as outside of their social group, who they see as being physically intimidating.
In a study researchers from Michigan State University inquired more than two hundred and fifty college-age women, among those two hundred and twenty-four were white and twenty-eight were black, to complete the online survey. They have to quickly associate qualities like muscularity with photos of men of both races.
The study found that when study subjects were at their most fertile, they were more and more prejudiced against males in a group different from their own. This was particularly true of women who pointed out that they saw the males as physically threatening.
According Prof Carlos David Navarrete from Michigan State University, studies have shown that people will more eagerly associate positive things within their own group. The study was part of a broader effort to understand the various predictors of prejudice. But the idea that this could shift across the menstrual cycle is pretty novel.
The small study suggests that there could be something about women’s biology that escorts them to protect themselves against men who they believe poses a risk to them, at the time when they are most at risk of getting pregnant. In other words, when women are more prone to conceive a child, they are biologically driven to be more discerning about who they are going to mate with.
Devoid of unavoidably realizing it, women protect themselves against men who they consider jeopardize that choice. They were expecting to discover that women who were at their most fertile were prejudiced against so-called out-group males, stated Prof Navarrete. The study could be useful in helping chuck out bias, explained lead study author Melissa McDonald.