A new French study finds that men who are down on their luck attracting females may simply suffer from a case of bad timing.
Researchers at University of South Brittany have found that women are most likely to give their phone number to a male stranger when they are most likely to get pregnant.
In conducting their study, the scientists recruited handsome young men to experimentally express interest in women passing by on a street corner. They wanted to see whether fertility affected the women’s receptivity to male advances.
While previous research has consistently shown that women respond more to masculine faces, odors and voices when they are most fertile, this is the first study to look at the obvious outcome of this phenomenon, according to Nicolas Gu©guen, a psychologist at the University of South Brittany, France.
“These studies did not focus on women’s behavior. It’s the first study to test the role of the menstrual cycle on courtship request, in a real social context and not in laboratory,” he said during an interview with New Scientist.
Gu©guen had five handsome 20-year-old men ask unsuspecting females for a date. The men were narrowed down from a larger group according to their attractiveness, as judged by a group of 28 women.
On nice summer days, the men, who went by the name “Antoine,” approached the first young woman they saw on a street corner and gave a standard pick-up line.
“Hello. My name’s Antoine. I just wanted to say that I think you’re really pretty. I have to go to work this afternoon, and I was wondering if you would give me your phone number. I’ll phone you later and we can have a drink together someplace,” they said to the women.
If the woman gave their number, “Antoine” then said: “See you soon,” and left.
If the women declined, they were given a cheery standard response: “Too bad. It’s not my day. Have a nice afternoon!”
Immediately after the encounter, regardless of how the female responded, a female researcher approached the woman and informed her of the study, then asked for her help in completing a short questionnaire. The survey asked questions about age, contraception use, days since her last period and pregnancy status –none of which were direct measure of her likely disappointment at the deception.
Of the 506 women who were encountered by the men, 455 participated in the survey and 51 declined.
Gu©guen noticed a few trends after examining the responses.
In total, 8.6% of the women provided their phone number to the men. Tough odds, given the men in the study were deemed the most handsome. Interestingly, those women not taking oral contraceptives were twice as likely to accept the men’s offer as women taking the pill, 5.8% as opposed to 12%. Gu©guen suggests this might reflect the likelihood that women on the pill may be more likely to already have a man in their life.
When Gu©guen analyzed the data according to a women’s fertility, he found more interesting results. Among women off the pill, those in their fertile phase accepted 21.7% of advances, while those on their periods responded to just 7.8 % of men. This significant statistical difference was not observed for women on the pill.
Gu©guen cautiously suggests the study may offer real-world support for research showing women are most receptive to advances when they are most likely to get pregnant.
Hormones may play a role in the study’s results. For example, levels of the hormones estradiol (a form of estrogen) and progesterone wax and wane during a woman’s cycle, and most oral contraceptives contain progesterone.
However, Gu©guen cautions that a woman’s relationship status may mask such associations, since single women may be less likely to be taking birth control pills.
Gu©guen is now repeating his study in scenarios where men are likely to have better odds at winning a woman’s cellphone number.
“Twenty-year-old women were approached by 20-year-old males in nightclubs and solicited to dance with them during the period when slow songs were played,” Gu©guen said.
Gu©guen’s study was published in the journal Biological Psychology.
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