Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger and
Speaker 1: I just got back from south By Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: And while I was there, I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: live podcasts, especially science podcasts. Uh. And as we have
Speaker 1: been mentioning all throughout the month, we're doing the whole
Speaker 1: tripod hashtag things. So if you're unfamiliar with this, Basically
Speaker 1: the idea here is to promote other shows by letting
Speaker 1: people know what you listen to. Uh, you say out
Speaker 1: on social media, Hey I like stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: mind hashtag tripod. People can search the tripod hashtag and
Speaker 1: find new stuff because let's let's admit it, it's a
Speaker 1: Podcasts aren't the easiest in terms of discover ability, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many of these days, and that's a lot
Speaker 1: of bad podcast out there, but there are some really
Speaker 1: good ones, and then there's just a rich variety. And
Speaker 1: what constitutes a podcast is it? Is it people having
Speaker 1: more of a real conversation. Is it a type we
Speaker 1: produced product, is it all music or is it one
Speaker 1: of those silent podcasts that I'm hearing more and more about.
Speaker 1: Those are the best. It's just it's not even white noise,
Speaker 1: is just nothing, just absolutely emptyness you can just pour
Speaker 1: yourself into. Well. The one one of the ones that
Speaker 1: I saw at south By that really grabbed my attention
Speaker 1: was this it's pretty new podcast it just started this
Speaker 1: year called Slings and Arrows, and they had a guest
Speaker 1: named Christina Duranti, and she is a professor. She's at
Speaker 1: Rutgers University right now, and she specializes in studying ovulation
Speaker 1: and how it relates to consumer decision making. And so
Speaker 1: I was just fascinated by the stuff she was talking about,
Speaker 1: and I came back and I was like, we got
Speaker 1: to do an episode on this woman's research. So we
Speaker 1: took a eap dive into her cv. Basically, we read
Speaker 1: a lot of her articles in this episode is about ovulation,
Speaker 1: but then it's also about the research that she's conducted
Speaker 1: over the years how people have reacted to it, because
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of criticism of her work. But
Speaker 1: also the real wrap around here, the real takeaway is
Speaker 1: that there's a sort of insidious marketing aspect to this
Speaker 1: as well, which is that, Uh, if you're able to
Speaker 1: track when a woman is ovulating, and ovulation leads to
Speaker 1: different styles of decision making, then you could potentially market
Speaker 1: in a manipulative way to women when they're ovulating to
Speaker 1: get them to spend more money on something. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that was what Durante's whole kind of framework was. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: so for instance, like, um, you know these ovulation tracking apps,
Speaker 1: like my wife uses one of those. Yes, yes, I
Speaker 1: think I've heard of these. Yeah, so there's the possibility
Speaker 1: of using those to have like pop up ads or
Speaker 1: two for them to like sell the information of when
Speaker 1: you're ovulating to a third party. Uh. The the other
Speaker 1: idea here is that like, based on your purchase history,
Speaker 1: that somebody working in marketing might be able to figure
Speaker 1: out when you're ovulating. It's real strange stuff. So I thought,
Speaker 1: this is something that we really need to take a
Speaker 1: look at. Um, and this would be just one detail
Speaker 1: of our biometric information that we're going to be increasingly
Speaker 1: totally giving to machines and giving to potential advertisers, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You know, pop up ads like Hey, I see that
Speaker 1: you're sweaty, maybe you stink, Maybe you should buy this product. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to throw a couple of disclaimers in here
Speaker 1: up front, the first being I really wish that our
Speaker 1: colleagues Christen Conger and Caroline Irvine were still here, so
Speaker 1: that maybe one or both of them could sit in
Speaker 1: with us and talk to us about this topic, because
Speaker 1: they have just you know, having worked on stuff Mom
Speaker 1: never told you for so many years. They've encountered so
Speaker 1: many studies like this and have a lot of experience
Speaker 1: with the controversy surrounding things like this. I think they
Speaker 1: could have given us a perspective on it that would
Speaker 1: be interesting, But I think this research is interesting enough
Speaker 1: that we should just go ahead and share it with
Speaker 1: our audience anyway. Now that being said, we're going to
Speaker 1: tackle the subject with the same level of care and
Speaker 1: decorum that we tackle any topic here on stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind. Yeah, and another note I want to
Speaker 1: say before we start. We're definitely going to address this
Speaker 1: at the end. But these studies could be seen as
Speaker 1: very deterministic in that they seemingly propose that a single
Speaker 1: factor such as ovulation drives the decision making of many women,
Speaker 1: and I think it's worth stepping back and acknowledging that
Speaker 1: before we even start that there are many other factors
Speaker 1: that influence decision making in both men and women, right,
Speaker 1: And I think Durante would probably agree with us on that.
Speaker 1: But most of all, it's important not to read this
Speaker 1: research and assume, oh, means that women aren't capable of
Speaker 1: making rational, logical decisions outside of their reproductive cycle, right,
Speaker 1: Like I could. I can imagine somebody listening to this
Speaker 1: and being like, oh, this completely confirms everything that I've
Speaker 1: ever thought about women, you know, and like, please don't
Speaker 1: take that. That's always the danger of with studies like this,
Speaker 1: right that, because ultimately, nobody wants to be reduced to
Speaker 1: a mirror meat puppet or a hormonal meat puppet. Uh,
Speaker 1: especially if there's just one string. And generally what's going
Speaker 1: on with studies like this and any so many studies
Speaker 1: that cross our desks that that boil down the human behavior.
Speaker 1: It's about looking at one potential string on the meat puppet,
Speaker 1: and nobody wants to We want to be a very
Speaker 1: complex marionette pulled in different directions by a number of strings.
Speaker 1: And that's more in keeping with what the reality is totally.
Speaker 1: It's just that when stuff like this gets published and
Speaker 1: then the media takes it and they kind of boil
Speaker 1: it down to reduce it to it's like the lowest essence.
Speaker 1: There's misinformation that goes around, and in particular, there's been
Speaker 1: considerable controversy around these studies as well, even causing CNN
Speaker 1: to pull one of their stories covering one about ovulation
Speaker 1: and voting, and we're going to talk about that at
Speaker 1: length later. Some people have called the pseudoscience. Other people
Speaker 1: have referred to it as quote stupid, offensive, and sexist.
Speaker 1: I think that there is something of value here. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna look at this stuff. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: we're gonna just establish the ground rules of what ovulation is.
Speaker 1: But then we're gonna look at these studies and we're
Speaker 1: gonna step back, look at the criticism, and then you
Speaker 1: and hopefully us together can kind of come to a
Speaker 1: conclusion of what we think. All right, well, let's jump
Speaker 1: into it establishing just what ovulation is. Many of you
Speaker 1: already are are well informed on this, but we have
Speaker 1: we have both genders listening in, and we have people
Speaker 1: of different ages. So let's let's get down to break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this section awkward sex education with Coach
Speaker 1: Christian Seger. UH. So here we go. This is a
Speaker 1: lot of this information is right off of how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com, and we have many articles about the
Speaker 1: reproductive cycle UH and specifically ovulation. So here we go.
Speaker 1: Women are born with millions of immature eggs and these
Speaker 1: are contained in multicellular structures called follicles. Now, each of
Speaker 1: these is about the size of a pinhead and roughly
Speaker 1: once a month, or actually it's about every twenty eight days,
Speaker 1: though cycles can vary. The hypothalamus in our brain sends
Speaker 1: a signal to the pituitary gland and that says, well,
Speaker 1: you should release these follicle stimulating hormones. Now that's important
Speaker 1: because that's the first hormone that comes into play here
Speaker 1: with these ovulation studies. These prompt the follicles to develop
Speaker 1: into mature eggs. One grows more dominant than the others,
Speaker 1: and within two to three days following its maturity, the
Speaker 1: egg will react to the release of another hormone, and
Speaker 1: this is a lutinizing hormone. This stimulates the sex hormones
Speaker 1: needed for pregnancy. It pushes the egg through the wall
Speaker 1: of the ovary. The follicle itself then sends out a
Speaker 1: call for an increase in estrogen production. So we've already
Speaker 1: got what like three different types of hormones that are
Speaker 1: being increased in decreased in various ways right now. Between
Speaker 1: their periods, women ovulate usually. Uh, Now, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: In the research it said usually a week before or after.
Speaker 1: And my wife corrected me on this and took out
Speaker 1: her little app and showed me exactly where it fell.
Speaker 1: I think it's like it's sort of at the halfway point.
Speaker 1: It can be a regular though, uh, and it can
Speaker 1: occur even during a woman's period. Generally, though, most women
Speaker 1: ovulate between day eleven and day twenty one, counting down
Speaker 1: from their last menstrual period. So how do you know
Speaker 1: when you're ovulating, Well, it's supposed to happen on the
Speaker 1: four day of your cycle. It's the time when you
Speaker 1: are the most fertile. And the symptoms include being able
Speaker 1: to feel an ache in the ovary area, a change
Speaker 1: in cervical secretion, a dip in body temperature and then
Speaker 1: subsequently a spike, as well increased sex drive, light spotting,
Speaker 1: a bloating feeling, and heightened senses of taste and or smell. Now,
Speaker 1: oral contraceptive though they can suppress all of these symptoms,
Speaker 1: and that's important to these studies as well. Now, how
Speaker 1: can everyone else tell when you're ovulating? Well, they can't.
Speaker 1: Unlike many other species such as the noobos in particular,
Speaker 1: humans undergo what's called concealed ovulation, and most primates have
Speaker 1: semi concealed ovulation. Now, why their number of theories here?
Speaker 1: There's a parental investment, infanticide, reduction, sex and reward, social bonding,
Speaker 1: and there's even a theory out there that it's just
Speaker 1: a mere byproduct of being a biped. Yeah, but like
Speaker 1: Durante and many of her studies kind of establishes this
Speaker 1: upfront in the papers, basically saying, like, you know, with
Speaker 1: primates you can sometimes tell that they're ovulating because their
Speaker 1: genitals are swelling, right, and so subsequent both male and
Speaker 1: female primates no and that sort of changes how they
Speaker 1: socially interact with another. Now, normally the one egg passes
Speaker 1: from either of the ovaries through the fallopian tubes. This
Speaker 1: happens once per cycle, and then when or if two
Speaker 1: eggs are released within a single twenty four hour span
Speaker 1: and both are fertilized, this can result in fraternal twins,
Speaker 1: and we have a whole brain stuff episode all about
Speaker 1: how twins work. Uh, if you want to learn more,
Speaker 1: you can go check that out. Inside the flopian tubes
Speaker 1: are tiny hairs called cilia, and they helped pass that
Speaker 1: egg through the tube toward the uterus. This takes several
Speaker 1: days and the egg exists in a perfect environment that
Speaker 1: provides it with the nutrients that it needs. Now, while
Speaker 1: this is going on, the uterus, which is prompted by
Speaker 1: signals released by the follicle that formed the egg originally,
Speaker 1: has formed an internal lining called endometrium. This is rich
Speaker 1: in blood and nutrients, and it's prepared to house and
Speaker 1: nurture the egg if it gets fertilized. Now, fertilization does
Speaker 1: not occur. The egg disintegrates into the uterine lining that
Speaker 1: passes out of the body during the period. So that's
Speaker 1: the real basic sex said class uh, that we're going
Speaker 1: to introduce here. That's the science up front of like,
Speaker 1: here's how the body works, right, and we've related that
Speaker 1: there's a definite ebb and flow of behavior that's associated
Speaker 1: with this. Yeah. Absolutely, And that's where Christina Durante comes in.
Speaker 1: So she is an associate professor of Marketing currently at
Speaker 1: Rutger's Business School. She's a social psychologist that's interested in
Speaker 1: the biology of decision making. Most of her research mixes
Speaker 1: social psychology, evolutionary biology, and consumer decision making. She was
Speaker 1: actually an entertainment marketing executive before she entered into academia,
Speaker 1: but now she focuses on women's consumer choices and luxury spending,
Speaker 1: family consumer spending, and how hormones like all the ones
Speaker 1: we were just talking about, influence those decisions. Overall, her
Speaker 1: research presents a theory that ovulation leads women to prioritize
Speaker 1: the securement of genetic benefits from a mate who possesses
Speaker 1: indicators of genetic fitness. Subsequently, her research shows that ovulating
Speaker 1: women have an increased desire for short term sexual relationships
Speaker 1: with men that possess markers of genetic fitness. And so
Speaker 1: if you're wondering what that means physical symmetry for instance,
Speaker 1: or masculinity or social dominance. She has a ted X
Speaker 1: presentation that is available on YouTube. It's from in that
Speaker 1: she actually references the Yurkeys National Primate Research Center that's
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and she's talking about how and often
Speaker 1: cases there there are fewer male primates than there are
Speaker 1: female primates. Uh. And when the females approach ovulation, they
Speaker 1: become more aggressive and they even attack one another. And
Speaker 1: that's because they're becoming more competitive for reproductive of resources.
Speaker 1: And that is really the very simplistic, broad framework for
Speaker 1: almost all the research that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1: Now we've already touched on the fact that, yes, when
Speaker 1: when humans ovulate, there's not there's not like a drastic
Speaker 1: change in colorization of the individual. And yet we're humans.
Speaker 1: We wear clothing, so this makes us, this actually makes
Speaker 1: this capable of any number of colorization and appearance changes.
Speaker 1: There are subtle ways in which we maybe do let
Speaker 1: one another know if we're ovulating, and we don't even
Speaker 1: know it ourselves. Let's take a quick break, and when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're gonna look at Durante's first big
Speaker 1: paper on this, which specifically talks about ovulations effect on
Speaker 1: clothing choices. All right, we're back. So Durante, I believe this,
Speaker 1: So this comes from two thousand eight, and I believe
Speaker 1: that this is maybe something that she was working on,
Speaker 1: what like it might have been her dissertation, or it
Speaker 1: might have been something she was working on in grad school. UH.
Speaker 1: She and others tested a hypothesis that women prefer clothing
Speaker 1: that is more revealing and quote sexy when their fertility
Speaker 1: is at its highest within their ovulatory cycle, and the
Speaker 1: results suggest that clothing preference shifts and could reflect an
Speaker 1: increase in female to female competition near ovulation. So, going
Speaker 1: back to that your keys center metaphor of the primate
Speaker 1: sort of fighting each other, the ovulation, the feeling of
Speaker 1: intense competition with other females from mates, and therefore the
Speaker 1: desire to to essentially improve one's UH selectivity. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So the methodology they had they brought eighty eight women
Speaker 1: in to report to their lab twice, and first on
Speaker 1: the first visit was on a low fertility day of
Speaker 1: their cycle, and then the second visit was on a
Speaker 1: high fertility day. UH. And this was confirmed by using
Speaker 1: hormone tests. That's important. We're going to come back to
Speaker 1: that later. How they track whether these women are ovulating
Speaker 1: or not is extremely important to how these studies get criticized.
Speaker 1: So in each instance, they had the participants posed for
Speaker 1: full body photographs in clothing they wore to the lab,
Speaker 1: and then they had them draw illustrations to indicate on
Speaker 1: an outfit that they would like to wear if they
Speaker 1: had a social event that evening. They also took surveys
Speaker 1: about their relationships, their social sexual orientation, and their desirability.
Speaker 1: Now I want to read this part from the study,
Speaker 1: the instructions on how they should do the illustration. Basically,
Speaker 1: they handed them a bunch of colored pencils and there's
Speaker 1: like a piece of paper that had like a pre
Speaker 1: drawn female body on it and it said this. Imagine
Speaker 1: that you were attending a social gathering at a friend's
Speaker 1: apartment tonight. From what this friend tells you, it is
Speaker 1: a large party where there will be a lot of
Speaker 1: single attract of people. The party starts around ten pm. Geez,
Speaker 1: it's so late. I know it's here we are. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be in bed by eleven. Begin to decide
Speaker 1: on what you are going to wear to this party.
Speaker 1: Using the colored pencils provided, indicate on the paper doll
Speaker 1: what you will be wearing to this party by drawing
Speaker 1: an outfit showing where the neckline will start on your
Speaker 1: shirt to where the shirt will end. Also indicate where
Speaker 1: your pants, shorts, skirt, etcetera. Will begin and end. So
Speaker 1: they had to these eighty eight women do this. They've
Speaker 1: got all these drawings right, and to analyze them, they
Speaker 1: ran measurements on variables such as the total amount of
Speaker 1: skin that was revealed, the sexiness and the revealing rating
Speaker 1: of the illustration, and a composite rating of all those
Speaker 1: photographs that they took as well their choice. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of like statistical stuff involved in there. I
Speaker 1: skipped over that because I didn't want to bore you
Speaker 1: the audience. You know, there's a lot of math there.
Speaker 1: But if you want all this stuff is available on
Speaker 1: her CV site, you can read any of these studies.
Speaker 1: So they found that the choices that these women made
Speaker 1: were moderated by other factors beside fertility, including their social sexuality, attractiveness,
Speaker 1: relationship status, and relationship satisfaction. So, for instance, sexually unrestricted
Speaker 1: women showed greater shifts in preference for revealing clothing worn
Speaker 1: to the lab when they were near ovulation. Now there's
Speaker 1: you know, in studies like these, they've got to do
Speaker 1: a lot of literature review up front, and uh, this
Speaker 1: is no difference. So related research they turned to indicated
Speaker 1: the following that women's mating psychology is sensitive to fertility status,
Speaker 1: and that ovulation could shift a woman's social motives and
Speaker 1: behaviors in adaptive ways. Women may experience greater sexual desire
Speaker 1: during these fertile windows in their cycle, but the desire
Speaker 1: may be direct did toward what are referred to as
Speaker 1: non primary partners if their primary partner specifically lacks indicators
Speaker 1: they find attractive. So let's say I don't know you're married, uh,
Speaker 1: and you your husband doesn't have a symmetrical face. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: during this particular time, you may be attracted to people
Speaker 1: who aren't your husband whose faces are more symmetrical. I
Speaker 1: think that's what they're kind of getting at here. Additionally,
Speaker 1: ovulation can include an increase and a woman's self perceived
Speaker 1: attractiveness and a greater motive for them to attend social gatherings.
Speaker 1: Hence this whole you know methodology of draw what you're
Speaker 1: going to wear to a party. Other research has found
Speaker 1: that reward related brain areas of women experience more activation
Speaker 1: during the mid follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, So
Speaker 1: this implies that they experience an increase in desire for
Speaker 1: immediate rewards. Another study argues that women become more competitive
Speaker 1: with their women during ovulation. Similarly, another study found that
Speaker 1: women closest to the expected day of ovulation were less
Speaker 1: likely to share a monetary award and more likely to
Speaker 1: reject a low offer to share a monetary stake specifically
Speaker 1: with another woman. So, as you can tell, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of research in this specific field about ovulation and
Speaker 1: sort of social psychological behaviors. And I think already people
Speaker 1: listening to to the show here you're hearing these these
Speaker 1: arguments and you can already feel maybe a certain amount
Speaker 1: of of outrage or sympathy for outrage regarding what may
Speaker 1: sound like a sort of one string marionette um interpretation
Speaker 1: of human behavior, right exactly. And that is a criticism
Speaker 1: that has absolutely been leveled against these studies. Um. But
Speaker 1: when you add all of this research together, not just Durante's,
Speaker 1: but this this other stuff, it suggests it seems to
Speaker 1: suggest that women are competitive for resources during the most
Speaker 1: most fertile part of their cycle. Okay, but remember how
Speaker 1: we were talking about those monkeys and how they could
Speaker 1: detect ovulatory shifts. What if it was possible for human
Speaker 1: beings to detect those in women based on their social behaviors.
Speaker 1: So some women report that their primary partners get more
Speaker 1: jealous or possessive when they're near ovulation. So the question
Speaker 1: then is like, how do these partners like detect an
Speaker 1: extra variation and flirtation or what about this? What if
Speaker 1: men can smell changes in hormones through body scent. So
Speaker 1: several studies have shown that men actually rate the smell
Speaker 1: of t shirts worn by women on fertile days of
Speaker 1: their cycle as smelling more attractive than those that are
Speaker 1: worn on non fertile days. This reminds me of the
Speaker 1: I think there's like a scent based speed dating. Is
Speaker 1: that right? That I don't know to what extent it
Speaker 1: It lasted, but it was making the realms and various
Speaker 1: headlines if you years back, because the idea was, oh,
Speaker 1: well we have this acent is going to be such
Speaker 1: a powerful indicator that you should be able to at
Speaker 1: least weed out potential romantic partners just based on smell
Speaker 1: of and so if you know this, then the ideas
Speaker 1: that you want to make sure you bring a shirt
Speaker 1: that you wore on the day when you're ovulating. I
Speaker 1: guess so we kind of get into one string marionette
Speaker 1: territory totally. Uh, So there's also another study. Here's a
Speaker 1: study that would should really be a runner up for
Speaker 1: the Ignoble prizes. A research study found that lap dancers
Speaker 1: earned more tips when they were near ovulation than other
Speaker 1: cycle phases. I believe I remember this study, and I
Speaker 1: believe it did win an Ignoble. It didn't. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: there's growing evidence that complete strangers can actually detect cues
Speaker 1: of ovulation in women. But I think, like what they
Speaker 1: mean here is that a lot of this is subconscious.
Speaker 1: It's not like I walk by a coworker and I go, oh,
Speaker 1: she's ovulating today, right, you know, It's it's like these
Speaker 1: subtle cues. Yeah, it's the idea. Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: subconscious understanding of what's going on, as opposed to like
Speaker 1: terminator read out of saying ovulating individual. Right, all right,
Speaker 1: So all of this comes down to this paper's hypothesis
Speaker 1: that women may alter their appearance to appear more physically
Speaker 1: attractive when their fertility is at its highest, or alternatively,
Speaker 1: that they feel more attractive near ovulation, and so they
Speaker 1: put more effort into their appearance as a result. Now
Speaker 1: there's a third possibility to which is that it could
Speaker 1: be a result of the increased competition that I was
Speaker 1: talking about, so that women alter their physical attractiveness to
Speaker 1: enhance their ability to compete with other women for those
Speaker 1: quote higher quality mates that like genetic territory. Again, what
Speaker 1: made this study different from all the others was that
Speaker 1: it examined a larger sample of women who were both
Speaker 1: partnered and unpartnered. And this was in addition to women
Speaker 1: who had and who had not experienced sexual in or
Speaker 1: course uh. And this was because psychological mechanisms regulating behavioral
Speaker 1: changes may be sensitive to sexual experiences, so they added
Speaker 1: the illustration method. They also took into account the individual
Speaker 1: difference variables that we mentioned already, and instead of using
Speaker 1: counting methods to estimate high fertility days like counting down
Speaker 1: from when your period ended, they utilized ovulation devices to
Speaker 1: pinpoint and verify fertility. Again totally important because this is
Speaker 1: something they attacked for later. The researchers considered high fertility
Speaker 1: to be no more than two days prior to their
Speaker 1: lutinizing hormone surge and no later than four days following
Speaker 1: their lutinizing hormone search. They did not include women who
Speaker 1: used hormonal contraceptives. Or who had irregular cycle links, or
Speaker 1: who had had recently performed childbirth, or were currently breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: or experienced dramatic weight changes, or used antidepressants or smoked
Speaker 1: cigarettes regularly. So there's like this, why had variety of
Speaker 1: factors that they just completely swept out of the study
Speaker 1: because those factors could potentially alter the cycle. So what
Speaker 1: were their results? Well, they found this that women prefer
Speaker 1: clothing that is more revealing and sexy near the onset
Speaker 1: of ovulation, particularly when they're in mating relevant contexts. I
Speaker 1: guess that's shorthand for a party. At a party, they
Speaker 1: sketch sexier outfits when they're nearest ovulation. But the ratings
Speaker 1: on the photographs didn't differ significantly. Women who were more
Speaker 1: sexually experienced revealed more skin on their outfit illustrations that
Speaker 1: when they're at high fertility than the women who were
Speaker 1: sexually inexperienced, And the results seemed to indicate that women
Speaker 1: who were more open to casual sexual encounters desired outfits
Speaker 1: that were more revealing, and they wore clothing that was
Speaker 1: sexier when they were at high fertility. This was preferred
Speaker 1: by single women over partnered women. Overall, The researchers saw
Speaker 1: this as a reflection of an increase in what they
Speaker 1: referred to as intra sexual competition, but it was moderated
Speaker 1: by their clothing choice. Their thesis is that ovulation was
Speaker 1: the key variable in deciding how we look and how
Speaker 1: that contributes to the day to day changes and how
Speaker 1: we decide to appear attractive to the rest of the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's set up back from this big study. Remember
Speaker 1: that this all gets back to marketing, right, So if
Speaker 1: you are ovulating and somehow a marketer knows that, I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it's like a department store that you
Speaker 1: have an app of on your phone, or you've got
Speaker 1: some kind of subscription to an email service, or it's like, um,
Speaker 1: like an online clothing service like some of the people
Speaker 1: we advertise for, right right, And then of course, just
Speaker 1: the the very safe bet that a certain number of
Speaker 1: customers are going to be ovulating when they view your
Speaker 1: ads or walked by your store or are in your
Speaker 1: store browsing exactly. So the idea here is that like,
Speaker 1: that's the best time to try to sell these products
Speaker 1: that would potentially be more revealing. So take it or
Speaker 1: leave it. I don't you know. We're gonna go through
Speaker 1: more of this, but let's like always remember with these
Speaker 1: studies that sort of the context is that regardless of
Speaker 1: whether or not we believe in these studies, it seems
Speaker 1: like business people do and they're going to use this
Speaker 1: information to try to sell you stuff. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: it's very important to keep in mind as well as
Speaker 1: just the normal important take home on any study we
Speaker 1: we reference here is that it's not necessarily the final work.
Speaker 1: Now we've got another study here. This is the next one, UH,
Speaker 1: that she did related to this on ovulation and product choice.
Speaker 1: I think you did the research on this one, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this one basically just springs off of what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about here. So again this is just talking
Speaker 1: about how peak fertility and women UM affects choices. And
Speaker 1: in this case, UH found that the non consciously chose
Speaker 1: products that can hand their appearance, and this seems to
Speaker 1: be driven by this desire to outdo attractive rival women.
Speaker 1: So this study entailed three experiments to see how ovulation
Speaker 1: affected product choice specifically, UH, namely the degree to which
Speaker 1: peak fertility women chose products that enhance appearance. So experiments.
Speaker 1: These experiments entailed a virtual shopping exercise and it charting
Speaker 1: of their ovulation. Uh. And a lot of this is
Speaker 1: very similar, very similar methodology to the previous study, except
Speaker 1: with a different specific focus. So in the first experiment,
Speaker 1: women chose a greater percentage of sexy clothing in this
Speaker 1: online shopping scenario and accessories items near ovulation. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's the first level. In the second experiments, same deal,
Speaker 1: only they were primed to think about the attractiveness of
Speaker 1: local men and women via photopriming. Uh. Women primed with
Speaker 1: attractive women chose significantly more sexy products near ovulation, and
Speaker 1: the women chose sexier products when prime desirable men. But
Speaker 1: these choices were not affected by their ovulation status. Interesting.
Speaker 1: And then the third experiment, same deal again, except ovulating
Speaker 1: and non ovulating women were primed to consider first of all,
Speaker 1: attractive local women, second unattractive local women, third attractive distant women,
Speaker 1: or for attractive distant unattractive distant women. So again, the
Speaker 1: results indicated that attractive local women were the influencing factor here.
Speaker 1: So uh. The idea here I being, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what you know. A supermodel in New York is wearing
Speaker 1: and looking like but if there's some indication that this
Speaker 1: is what people are, this is what potential uh mating
Speaker 1: competitors look like and dress like, and this is how
Speaker 1: they appear here where you are, that that can have
Speaker 1: this impact, that this can pull the marionette strings. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I could sort of see an idea here that like,
Speaker 1: even though you may not live in the big city,
Speaker 1: here watching television and it's like, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: a drama that takes place in New York City. It's
Speaker 1: Sex in the City, right, and you see how those
Speaker 1: women dress, which I wouldn't be shocked to find out
Speaker 1: that the Sex in the City cast were like doing
Speaker 1: product placement with a clothing that they were wearing. Right,
Speaker 1: So that is supposed to subsequently make you think, oh,
Speaker 1: that's how at these vast distance attractive women are dressing.
Speaker 1: How does that relate to how I'm dressing? Competition level? Right?
Speaker 1: But alright, so I'm gonna play Devil's advocate here. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna step out so immediately like what I think is
Speaker 1: well attractive quote unquote is such a subjective term. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? Because we don't have like a universal
Speaker 1: constant for what attractive is so how does measuring that
Speaker 1: play into this? You know, I could see that being
Speaker 1: an argument leveled against this. Yeah, it had this. This
Speaker 1: seems to have a very like fashion magazine level understanding
Speaker 1: of what people find attract I mean, because a lot
Speaker 1: of this comes down to clothing choices, and one individual
Speaker 1: sexy clothing is not going to be the sexy clothing
Speaker 1: of another individual. I could still I could still see
Speaker 1: within the parameters of the of the experiment how those
Speaker 1: levels could could come into play. But say an ovulating
Speaker 1: woman who's really into the punk scene, her level of
Speaker 1: sexy attire, the sexier attire would be different from the
Speaker 1: you know, from somebody who's I don't know, into goth totally. No,
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking about this that like subcultures in particular,
Speaker 1: and and I don't know if this is something that
Speaker 1: Durante has taken to account at all in any of
Speaker 1: her studies. She didn't talk about it, but maybe it's
Speaker 1: something they're thinking about doing. But yeah, like various subcultures
Speaker 1: have various definitions of what attractive looks like, right, and
Speaker 1: what kind of signifiers there are, and so yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not entirely sure how that works out, especially like when
Speaker 1: they're doing the drawings. Will also say this, Like when
Speaker 1: I watched her ted X talk, she showed the actual
Speaker 1: images of the drawings that people did and the drawings
Speaker 1: that were considered, like the conservative drawings of outfits that
Speaker 1: they were doing when they weren't ovulating. I, as a
Speaker 1: straight guy, was like, well, that's far more attractive to
Speaker 1: me than like these super short shorts and like halter
Speaker 1: tops that the the ovulating women were drawing. So like,
Speaker 1: it's all subjective, right, yeah, and and not only subcultural,
Speaker 1: but cultural in in general. And certainly there's a there's
Speaker 1: an argument to be made as with so many studies
Speaker 1: like what was the sample group here? Um? Were these
Speaker 1: just uh, you know, a bunch of of of white
Speaker 1: women that you were interviewing here, white American women? Or
Speaker 1: were they different people from different races and cultures? So
Speaker 1: I will say that if you dig into these papers,
Speaker 1: like I didn't pull all of this for our research here,
Speaker 1: but she was very meticulous about how she documented demographics
Speaker 1: of age, ethnicity, sexual preference, all kinds of things, So, uh,
Speaker 1: subculture didn't come into it. But but but yeah, so
Speaker 1: they did take that into account, and that's where she
Speaker 1: runs in a little trouble later on too, because she uh,
Speaker 1: in a voting study that we're going to talk about later,
Speaker 1: she wanted a really large sampling study, uh, and so
Speaker 1: she did it online instead of in person. Before we
Speaker 1: get to that study, though, I very quickly want to
Speaker 1: hit one more study that she did in and this
Speaker 1: was it's not as related to the whole marketing influence argument,
Speaker 1: So I don't want to do as deep a dive
Speaker 1: on this. But the the the paper is called Sexy
Speaker 1: Cads Versus Good Dads, and the idea here is that
Speaker 1: they conducted three different studies to show that ovulating women
Speaker 1: perceived charismatic and physically attractive men, but not reliable and
Speaker 1: nice men as being more committed partners and more devoted
Speaker 1: future fathers. Specifically, ovulating women perceived what she refers to
Speaker 1: as sexy cads. But what is a cad? And so
Speaker 1: like their idea was kind of like she keeps calling
Speaker 1: it in the paper and also in this TEDx talk
Speaker 1: the bad Boy, like they show this picture of like
Speaker 1: a physically like a guy who's in great shape, he
Speaker 1: doesn't have a shirt on, he's got stubble name cad. No,
Speaker 1: but but oh, cad is kind of like a synonym
Speaker 1: for like, you know, like a guy who's like loose morals. What.
Speaker 1: I've never heard this before. I'm not familiar with cats man,
Speaker 1: you haven't worked the street. Huh. I've apparently never been
Speaker 1: accused of being a kid's sexy cads versus good dad's um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so uh. The idea was that these ovulating
Speaker 1: women found these guys to be more attractive as good
Speaker 1: fathers for their children. But wait, but then when they
Speaker 1: were asked if they would be good fathers for other
Speaker 1: women's children, they said no. Uh. And so this basically
Speaker 1: the breakdown of this without going through this whole paper.
Speaker 1: They understood this as being evolutionary behavior related to an
Speaker 1: ovulating woman desiring a man again with those strong genetic
Speaker 1: traits that they might pass on to their children. So
Speaker 1: these guys were symmetrical, they were dominant, they were masculine looking, right,
Speaker 1: and that I actually watched um again in the ted
Speaker 1: X talk. She showed some video they hired actors to
Speaker 1: play these guys. Uh, and the actor would do like
Speaker 1: like he was instructed to act like George Clooney when
Speaker 1: he was playing the cat okay, and he just like
Speaker 1: was like overly sure of himself and kind of suggestive,
Speaker 1: and then when he played the quote good dad, he
Speaker 1: was kind of unsure of himself, but was very like
Speaker 1: verbally obvious about the fact that, like he wanted to
Speaker 1: be in a committed relationship and that he was looking
Speaker 1: to settle down and he thought he would be a
Speaker 1: good father at some point in his life. And so
Speaker 1: these it was the same guy, Like, it was the
Speaker 1: same actor playing both roles. Now I can't help but
Speaker 1: wonder to what extent, uh, this involves the very human tendency.
Speaker 1: I think there's ocur is a you know, both sides
Speaker 1: of the gender divide, this idea that that when you
Speaker 1: think about another person and you think about a relationship
Speaker 1: with that person, you think about ways that they are
Speaker 1: going to change in your relationship. You know, she didn't
Speaker 1: get into that at all, but I did think about that,
Speaker 1: like the the I can fix him or I can
Speaker 1: fix her idea. Is that what you're kind of getting
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm getting at, And I can see
Speaker 1: where one could have that opinion. They're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if she were in my life, if he were in
Speaker 1: my life, then I can I can easily imagine how
Speaker 1: we come together and change with each other. But then
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about somebody else, you're like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: a disast, right, yeah, that's it's a bad story waiting
Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, exactly. And according to this study, how
Speaker 1: you think about that depends on where you are in
Speaker 1: your ovulation cycle. So it's interesting. All right, let's take
Speaker 1: our second break. When we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: get into the one that got her into trouble. This
Speaker 1: is the study on how ovulation supposedly affects voting. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So this is this is not surprising, right
Speaker 1: that this would be the one to get her into
Speaker 1: trouble because we're already dealing with some problematic and some
Speaker 1: problematic ideas here that that that really provoke argument. And
Speaker 1: then you're gonna throw politics into them. Oh yeah, not
Speaker 1: only politics, but religion. So yeah, so again, this is
Speaker 1: the one that had a lot of controversy to it. Uh.
Speaker 1: They took the ovulation behavior theory one step further and
Speaker 1: suggested that political and religious orientation is linked to reproductive
Speaker 1: goals and the ovulation cycle, and that changes women's views
Speaker 1: on politics and religion and subsequently their results show that
Speaker 1: ovulation lead single women to vote more liberal and be
Speaker 1: less religious and be more likely to vote for Barack
Speaker 1: Obama in but ovulation and women in committed relationships were
Speaker 1: more likely to become conservative, more religious, and they were
Speaker 1: more likely to vote for Mitt Romney in women are
Speaker 1: more likely to vote than men are. That's just outside
Speaker 1: of opulation studies, Like we know that as a statistic, uh,
Speaker 1: and that makes them pivotal to anybody who's seeking office. Right.
Speaker 1: You hear about this constantly on the talking head shows, right,
Speaker 1: like the female vote or the women vote or whatever.
Speaker 1: Um In Romney was favored by married women, but Obama
Speaker 1: was favored by single women. And it's been it's been
Speaker 1: a while, and boy did we go through one hell
Speaker 1: of an election. Uh, just recently, so it's hard to
Speaker 1: remember this, But there was all this talk, like all
Speaker 1: this horrible dumb talk and like talk radio and CNN
Speaker 1: and stuff that it was like, oh, if single women
Speaker 1: are allowed to make the decision, like we're gonna end
Speaker 1: up with Barack Obama again, like that kind of thing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the tendency to reduce all voters to like either
Speaker 1: single either single topic, single issue voters or just like
Speaker 1: single biological impulse of voters. That being said, I have
Speaker 1: to say Romney and Obama both very symmetrical individuals, both
Speaker 1: attractive guys. I would like to see more politicians hit
Speaker 1: that note, like really have that be like a key
Speaker 1: talking point on their on their campaign. I am a
Speaker 1: symmetrical individual. Well. Several theorists beyond Durante and her her
Speaker 1: co researchers, have proposed that political and religious ideology are
Speaker 1: related to reproductive goals, and this is possibly because of
Speaker 1: an individual's mating strategy drives and that those affect their
Speaker 1: political and religious attitudes. Other studies have shown that making
Speaker 1: concerns are strong predictors of religious service attendants as well
Speaker 1: as what their social attitudes are relating to the legalization
Speaker 1: of maryor wanna. So what they did in this one
Speaker 1: was they did two separate studies. Now remember what I said.
Speaker 1: The earlier studies they actually measured, you know, hormonally, whether
Speaker 1: these women were ovulating. Uh. In this they found participants
Speaker 1: via some kind of software Amazon has called mechanical Turk.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of it before, but they gave them
Speaker 1: small payments and they participated in basically surveys the women
Speaker 1: supplied their menstrual period information that was gathered as well
Speaker 1: as their current relationship status and their demographic information. Then
Speaker 1: there was a scaled survey that was used to measure
Speaker 1: their religiosity. Second study pretty similar methodology, but in addition
Speaker 1: they examined political attitudes. They split them into attitudes on
Speaker 1: social attitudes or social issues, and attitudes on economic issues.
Speaker 1: And they said that the distinction here was important because
Speaker 1: research has shown that reproductive goals are related to social
Speaker 1: political issues but not economic one. So following this survey,
Speaker 1: the participants were asked to indicate who they would vote
Speaker 1: for or who they might donate money to in the
Speaker 1: presidential election. And the essential argument here was that, first
Speaker 1: of all, ovulating women are more interested in mating while
Speaker 1: their bodies prepare for reproduction, and that sexual permissiveness is
Speaker 1: associated with lower religiosity and higher levels of liberal political ideology.
Speaker 1: So subsequently, single women experiencing increased reproductive impulses as a
Speaker 1: result of ovulation will hold less religious and more politically
Speaker 1: liberal preferences because they are interested in mating. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then they also said, meanwhile, paired women with the same
Speaker 1: reproductive impulses want to prevent infidelity in their relationships because
Speaker 1: that may cause them to potentially lose access to the
Speaker 1: resources they have to care for their children in themselves
Speaker 1: as a result of their relationship breaks. Like like that
Speaker 1: one right there alone, I was like, oh, so this
Speaker 1: is basically implying like a woman can't raise children on
Speaker 1: our own, or at least that that's an idea in
Speaker 1: the back of most uh women's minds when they're married.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh again, like super super subjective, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can. I mean, it's obvious why this study
Speaker 1: did not set well with a lot of people because
Speaker 1: at its core, it is taking something as as serious
Speaker 1: as one's political views, and something I know often is
Speaker 1: is nuanced and thought out, something that you know, when
Speaker 1: we think about it, we think about all the experiences
Speaker 1: of the things we've read, our whole life is leading
Speaker 1: up to our current political viewpoint. But then to say, actually,
Speaker 1: it's really more about your reproductive impulses. It's really about
Speaker 1: it's not about your your human view of the world.
Speaker 1: It's about your most basic animal instincts regarding the world.
Speaker 1: It totally takes out any kind of like complex decision
Speaker 1: making that's built into the human condition. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see why people would be really upset by it.
Speaker 1: We're not going to jump into that criticism right now
Speaker 1: because there's still one more study to cover, but we
Speaker 1: will get to the criticism, I promise, because let me
Speaker 1: tell you this, this thing got ripped to shreds. All right.
Speaker 1: Last study, this is the most recent one as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, comes from and it's about money
Speaker 1: and status and the ovulatory cycle. So this is one
Speaker 1: of the more recent ones. It found that women's monthly
Speaker 1: hormonal fluctuations seem to have an effect on their consumer behavior.
Speaker 1: This gets us back to the idea of marketing, right.
Speaker 1: I do want to add to that, Like with the
Speaker 1: voting study, the marketing thing didn't really seem to be
Speaker 1: able to come into play there. In fact, they like
Speaker 1: interviewed some political campaigners and they were like, how could
Speaker 1: we possibly It's not like we're going to knock on
Speaker 1: somebody's door and be like, hey, would you like to
Speaker 1: vote for our candidate? And when are you ovulating? Like
Speaker 1: you know, like that's not something that's going to come up.
Speaker 1: How do you gain that? Ye? Uh. However, so this
Speaker 1: hormonal fluctuation and consumer behavior systematically alters women's positional concerns,
Speaker 1: which could be important for marketers, consumers, and researchers alike.
Speaker 1: This all this basically ties together all of Duranti's research
Speaker 1: until now. Uh. So, the hypothesis here is that that
Speaker 1: week long period near ovulation should boost a woman's desire
Speaker 1: for status and subsequently alter their economic decisions. Uh And
Speaker 1: they found that women near ovulation seek quote unquote position
Speaker 1: goods to improve their social standing, but that this desire
Speaker 1: to improve social standing was relative with other women, not
Speaker 1: with other men. Uh. Other studies have shown that women
Speaker 1: do not always choose to increase their financials standing over
Speaker 1: absolute gains over other women. Fifty six percent, according to
Speaker 1: one study, would choose to take less money for themselves
Speaker 1: if it meant that they would gain relative status when
Speaker 1: compared to their peers. So the idea here is, um,
Speaker 1: they have two choices. I get like forty dollars, but
Speaker 1: if I get forty thou dollars, my female peers get
Speaker 1: sixty dollars, or I get twenty thousand dollars. And if
Speaker 1: I get twenty thousand dollars, my female peers only get
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And so the research seems to indicate that
Speaker 1: fifty six would choose to take the lower amount of
Speaker 1: money solely so that they can make sure that their
Speaker 1: peers stayed beneath them. Well, seems like the thing to
Speaker 1: do would be to go to your peers and say, look,
Speaker 1: this mad genie approached me with the deal. Um, I
Speaker 1: an't we split it evenly? You know, let's come up
Speaker 1: with a system that works better for everybody. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not far off. We're actually gonna talk about that
Speaker 1: in relation to the Dictator game. Haven't you guys talked
Speaker 1: about the Dictator game before? I want to say, you
Speaker 1: and Joe covered in a previous episode. I think so,
Speaker 1: I believe that came up. Uh, so that if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with this, the Dictator game is, uh, this
Speaker 1: this game where basically you give people a pile of money,
Speaker 1: and uh, there's two players. The first player has the
Speaker 1: fixed amount of money and they're tasked with dividing it
Speaker 1: between their self and the other person across from them. So,
Speaker 1: so let's let's say it's you and me. You're given
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars and you have to decide how much
Speaker 1: of that hundred dollars you give to me. Uh. And
Speaker 1: in this scenario, you're a dictator because you get to decide.
Speaker 1: The dictator can give as much or as little as
Speaker 1: they want to. That's hence the dictating. But the more
Speaker 1: they give, the less they get for themselves. Okay, So
Speaker 1: a meta analysis of all the game studies done on
Speaker 1: dictator studies indicates that people tend to give to of
Speaker 1: the money to the other person if they're a total stranger.
Speaker 1: So in theory, you would give me somewhere between of
Speaker 1: the money in your pile. You're a total stranger in
Speaker 1: this scenario. Oh yeah, that's right, we're not total strangers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would give me more. Maybe. Female dictators, though, typically
Speaker 1: offer more money than male dictators, and people offer more
Speaker 1: money to female receivers than the male receivers. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? So you're more likely if you're a woman,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to give more money to the person
Speaker 1: across from you, And if you're a woman, you're more
Speaker 1: likely to receive money from whoever is the dictator in
Speaker 1: the game, regardless of agenda. Okay, so they used that
Speaker 1: in this study. This was one of the three studies
Speaker 1: they did to sort of, uh, measure money and status.
Speaker 1: And ovulation. So they hypothesized that ovulation would alter the
Speaker 1: size of the woman's offer in the dictator game. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they said, we think what they're gonna do is
Speaker 1: they're gonna give smaller financial offers to other women, but
Speaker 1: not to men. Uh. And they were led to believe
Speaker 1: that the other participant was a study uh sorry, a
Speaker 1: student in the same university as them. Now, when playing
Speaker 1: with a woman, an ovulating woman gave significantly less money
Speaker 1: than did those who were not opulating. Ovulation did not
Speaker 1: have the same effect when women played with men. Women
Speaker 1: who were ovulating gave significantly more money to a male
Speaker 1: player than those who weren't ovulating. In fact, they actually
Speaker 1: gave them more than fifty of the endowment. So I
Speaker 1: think about that they an ovulating woman with a man
Speaker 1: across from them. They've got a hundred dollars sitting in
Speaker 1: a pile, and they say, I could give you some
Speaker 1: of this money. How much am I going to give
Speaker 1: to you? They gave him more than half. So they gave,
Speaker 1: they gave. They made it so that the the mail
Speaker 1: across the table from them had more money than they did. Huh.
Speaker 1: Because I have to say, at this point, I imagine
Speaker 1: a lot of you doing the same thing. You're going
Speaker 1: through all the relationships in your life and determining how
Speaker 1: much you're gonna give them. And I feel like, like,
Speaker 1: like strangers, I'm probably gonna give anybody that I know.
Speaker 1: Everyone else pretty much, everybody else divided, regardless of agenda,
Speaker 1: is getting unless you, like you're my wife and she gets,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll give her, and maybe I give my
Speaker 1: son because was he need A five year old doesn't
Speaker 1: need that much money. But everybody else just fifty across
Speaker 1: the board. Yeah, that seems like a fair way to
Speaker 1: do it, right, It seems like the way to do it.
Speaker 1: Uh not very dictatorial, but pretty fair. Uh So. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so this is like their interesting like tidbit that
Speaker 1: they took away from this was just like wow, like
Speaker 1: like this really shows not only that there's competition between women,
Speaker 1: but that there's this idea that they're going to give
Speaker 1: more money to a man. Uh And overall, the studies
Speaker 1: showed that ovulation didn't just affect women's choices when they're
Speaker 1: purchasing food or clothing, which you know we've talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: but it has a broader effect on their positional concerns
Speaker 1: and society. Uh, and that this particular phase in their
Speaker 1: cycle seems to lead them to jockey for position with
Speaker 1: other women. Now, I do want to throw in here
Speaker 1: that in figuring out how much money of the genius
Speaker 1: gift I give to everyone, I'm not discounting the fact
Speaker 1: that yet there are plenty of men who would definitely
Speaker 1: give more than in an attempt, maybe even a nonconscious
Speaker 1: attempt to impress the the other person. I think that
Speaker 1: might be the idea here too. Right. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: let's keep in mind they didn't measure men on this,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get to this at the end of
Speaker 1: the episode. But hey, surprise, men are just as affected
Speaker 1: by hormonal changes in decision making as women are. It's
Speaker 1: just women are hormonal meat puppets than men are, like hormonal, Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: All right, let's dive into the criticism. Let's see what
Speaker 1: everybody really ripped into durante about here. Uh. And those
Speaker 1: of you who are listening who are chomping at the
Speaker 1: bit and they're like, oh, I hate this person. I
Speaker 1: can't believe you guys are covering this. This is the
Speaker 1: section for you. So uh, in particular, that study about voting,
Speaker 1: which was done together with Ashley Arcina and Vladis grisk cavicious. Uh.
Speaker 1: That was heavily criticized and it was not well received.
Speaker 1: In fact, so CNN pulled it off of their site
Speaker 1: because they said it failed to meet their editorial standards,
Speaker 1: and people online called it silly, stupid, sexist, and offensive.
Speaker 1: Science bloggers got together and they dissected and ridiculed the
Speaker 1: article as poor science. They said that it made false
Speaker 1: assumptions about human psychology. So there's a couple of like,
Speaker 1: uh sources that I turned to here for some perspective
Speaker 1: on this, not just science bloggers. Uh. In Psychology Today,
Speaker 1: Greg R. Murray wrote about it and he said, look,
Speaker 1: this study appears to be fairly typical social science, but
Speaker 1: it suffers from a lot something that a lot of
Speaker 1: people won't tolerate, which is the idea that biological factors
Speaker 1: might influence men and women to behave differently. Yeah. Christine
Speaker 1: Harris and Laura mick As I believe is how you
Speaker 1: pronounce it, or maybe it's mixed. They conducted a replication
Speaker 1: study of it, uh, and their study was called women
Speaker 1: Can Keep the Vote. No evidence that hormonal changes during
Speaker 1: the menstrual cycle impact political and religious beliefs. Now, this
Speaker 1: replication failed to confirm two of Durante's three findings, but
Speaker 1: it did confirm that ovulating single women were more likely
Speaker 1: to vote for Barack Obama. Okay, let's step back again.
Speaker 1: Greg R. Murray in Psychology Today, he says, Look, this
Speaker 1: is what science is supposed to be. This is science
Speaker 1: at its best. What it's supposed to happen is one
Speaker 1: study makes an argument, another study replicates it and tries
Speaker 1: to confirm it. And the fact that this replication study
Speaker 1: wasn't a complete and utter failure actually calls for even
Speaker 1: more research. And again he says, that's what's supposed to happen, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's how this system is supposed to work. It's
Speaker 1: not like a one and done deal. Somebody does a
Speaker 1: study and we just accept that is given fact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is something that's come up on the show definitely before. Specifically,
Speaker 1: I remember there was a study came out about the
Speaker 1: tartar grade being like and it's alien DNA, right, and
Speaker 1: these are water bears, water bears the client of of
Speaker 1: ASA Baron, one of our favorites around here. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: this was an example where study came out, made got
Speaker 1: a lot of coverage and we even record an episode
Speaker 1: on it, and then some than some other researchers set
Speaker 1: actually their problems with a study, etcetera. And this is
Speaker 1: an example of science and acts, and this is how
Speaker 1: science works. It's easy to lose track of that when
Speaker 1: so much of our reporting it really boils down to, oh,
Speaker 1: here's this new study that tells us how this thing works,
Speaker 1: which really every new study is helping us to better
Speaker 1: understand how the thing works, and in closer and closer,
Speaker 1: with frequent missteps, towards complete understanding. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: I think we can say this from the position of
Speaker 1: people who work in digital media that covers science, that
Speaker 1: oftentimes what you get is the article or video or
Speaker 1: podcast is presented to you as if, well, if this
Speaker 1: one study was done total total fact. Right. This makes
Speaker 1: me think of an old Lewis Black joke where and
Speaker 1: I think I brought this up on the show before,
Speaker 1: where he's like, study comes out and it says milks
Speaker 1: good for you. That study comes out and says milks
Speaker 1: bad for you, and then other study comes out and
Speaker 1: it says milks good for you again, and he keeps
Speaker 1: getting more and more confused and angry about whether he
Speaker 1: should drink milk or not. Right, And it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like that. Every time the study comes out, the
Speaker 1: articles that are written about the studies present them as
Speaker 1: if like, Okay, here it is. This is the absolute fact.
Speaker 1: Get ready to change your life around this, right, whereas
Speaker 1: it's more like, well, here's some research we're working on it.
Speaker 1: You know, science is a long term process. Um alright.
Speaker 1: Another person tackled this in The New Republican. It was
Speaker 1: a person named Charles Bethia. They looked at the study,
Speaker 1: uh and they said. Critics of the paper called it
Speaker 1: quote a footnote to the long and inglorious history of
Speaker 1: sexist pseudoscience now. Ironically, one Rutgers professor said that it
Speaker 1: was another troubling use of women's hormones to exclude them
Speaker 1: from politics or other societal opportunities. Say, that's ironic because
Speaker 1: look back at our notes. Christina Durante works at Rutgers now,
Speaker 1: so I wonder if these people work in the same
Speaker 1: department now, and like, how awkward that might be? Awkward
Speaker 1: coffee machine interactions exactly. Uh So. Another academic saw the
Speaker 1: study as a growing trend in social science journals of
Speaker 1: publishing research that is quote fragile, unreliable, that cannot be replicated,
Speaker 1: and does not generalize outside the lab to real world settings.
Speaker 1: Another referred to it as headline bait that is not
Speaker 1: obviously wrong. Now you're probably wondering, well, what did Duranta
Speaker 1: have to say about all of this? Well, she actually
Speaker 1: defended her research. She conducted an interview with the Chronicle
Speaker 1: of Higher Education to provide feedback on all this criticism
Speaker 1: that she was receiving, and I'll boil it down like this.
Speaker 1: She said she felt most media coverage of scientific work,
Speaker 1: such as the CNN article, only highlighted the basic findings
Speaker 1: of the paper and left a lot of room from misinterpretation.
Speaker 1: That the methodology was criticized for only asking women their
Speaker 1: opinions once in the specific study, and Durante argued specifically
Speaker 1: that she was using that Internet panel remember that like
Speaker 1: Amazon thing that I didn't really understand. She used that
Speaker 1: because she wanted to obtain a large and diverse sample
Speaker 1: of women for the study, and the only way she
Speaker 1: could do that, given probably where where she was located
Speaker 1: at the time, was to use the Internet. She also
Speaker 1: said the methodology was criticized because she couldn't actually test
Speaker 1: the hormone levels of the participants. So remember, like in
Speaker 1: all those earlier studies, they used like various scientific methods
Speaker 1: to test, you know, how they are ovulating. She said,
Speaker 1: there's a large body of research that's looking at ovulatory
Speaker 1: effects on behavior right now and it uses the same methodology,
Speaker 1: and those studies aren't being criticized. So why is mind
Speaker 1: being criticized? Uh? And I think we should also remember
Speaker 1: that in all of her other studies that we've talked
Speaker 1: about here, that she has measured hormone levels in the people.
Speaker 1: Her interpretation of the data was criticized as well, because
Speaker 1: when you when you really drill down and you look
Speaker 1: at the data, it showed that a strong majority of
Speaker 1: both married and single women voiced support for Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: So again, this is something that we remember hearing back
Speaker 1: in women love Barack Obama. They're gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: swing the vote, YadA YadA. Durante argued that, yes, that
Speaker 1: was in general, but the differences themselves arose near ovulation.
Speaker 1: So she was saying, yeah, if you look in general
Speaker 1: at how these women veered politically, yes, they tilted toward Obama,
Speaker 1: but the differences showed up when they're ovulating. Her final thing,
Speaker 1: she said, look, the door is open to build on
Speaker 1: this research line. You can replicate it and expand upon it, which,
Speaker 1: as we know, somebody did. Uh. And there was one
Speaker 1: other exchange that was outside of this Chronicle of Higher
Speaker 1: Education UH interview, where she said that understanding the causes
Speaker 1: of behavior can help change it. So if we know
Speaker 1: that the ovulatory cycle is subconsciously biasing women's behavior in
Speaker 1: a particular way, it's important to know this so that
Speaker 1: women can d bias their behavior. And then this is
Speaker 1: a direct quote. After all, knowing the causes of our
Speaker 1: behavior empowers us to have more control over our choices.
Speaker 1: So that is the gist. She's done a lot more studies,
Speaker 1: but these were the ones that were relevant to what
Speaker 1: I think is the most important takeaway from this, which
Speaker 1: is where is this all going? Well, it suggests that
Speaker 1: ovulating women are going to be more responsive to advertising,
Speaker 1: promotions and messages. Uh. And then subsequently, Uh, these messages
Speaker 1: are going to emphasize, hey, if you buy our product,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have positional superiority over other women. And like
Speaker 1: we said, earlier. Regardless of whether or not Robert or
Speaker 1: I or you listening believe in these studies and and
Speaker 1: find them to be valid, there are certainly marketers out
Speaker 1: there who have read these and are are rubbing their
Speaker 1: hands together and planning their their attack. Right. Uh, it
Speaker 1: suggests that marketers who can't ascertain a women's cycle information
Speaker 1: directly could use a twenty eight day marketing method based
Speaker 1: on their purchase histories. I think I mentioned that earlier.
Speaker 1: Using that information, they would then strategically send out messages
Speaker 1: that emphasize female competition, specifically when female consumers would be
Speaker 1: more responsive to these appeals during their ovulatory phase. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: I want to just pause here for a second. Like,
Speaker 1: next time I'm listening to a podcast, or I'm on
Speaker 1: an app, I'm reading the news, or I'm watching TV
Speaker 1: and some commercials pop up, I'm gonna be paying attention
Speaker 1: for the ads that specifically show competition between women, because
Speaker 1: I'm curious if this is going to be a trend
Speaker 1: now that we're seeing. Yeah, it's interesting when you consider
Speaker 1: just like tracking not only what you're buying, but also
Speaker 1: what you're shopping for. The I can't help but think
Speaker 1: of the interactions you see between Amazon and Facebook based
Speaker 1: on your your browsing history, Like I do one search
Speaker 1: for black Plato and then all I'm saying is his
Speaker 1: advertisements for black Plato on Facebook and Amazon is keeping
Speaker 1: track of what you're looking at when you're looking at them.
Speaker 1: And now I don't know to what extent they're actually
Speaker 1: incorporating this marketing approach, but you can see where it
Speaker 1: would be very easy for them to to do it,
Speaker 1: to at least extrapolate a rough ovulation cycle for a
Speaker 1: given user based on what they've been looking at on Amazon.
Speaker 1: What would be even scarier to me is, you know,
Speaker 1: I have never downloaded one of these ovulation apps, but
Speaker 1: I would imagine that the terms of service probably allow
Speaker 1: them to share that information with third parties, right, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but like so they could say, well,
Speaker 1: I've got information on Christina Sager, right, and uh, this
Speaker 1: is when she ovulates. I'm going to sell this to
Speaker 1: you know, Amazon, or I'm going to sell this to
Speaker 1: like these third party uh Internet advertise users. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's that's the insidious part to me, And that's
Speaker 1: the part that kind of like really shocked me when
Speaker 1: I saw her present this information live was like, whoa
Speaker 1: that is? That is like a new level. And think
Speaker 1: about it, Like that's just one thing that we're tracking.
Speaker 1: Think about all the other things that are being tracked
Speaker 1: based on, like our browsing histories or like our our
Speaker 1: mobile phone interactions. You know, you can and you can
Speaker 1: you can compare all these different timelines such as what's
Speaker 1: going on in the news, totally seasonal information. Uh really
Speaker 1: kind of breaks down our sense of autonomy after a while. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: all right, I said this at the top, but I
Speaker 1: want to reiterate this. I really don't want the takeaway
Speaker 1: here to be something as traditionally chauvinistic as well, women
Speaker 1: can't be trusted because of their bodies, right, Like that's ridiculous. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is interesting psychology and biology. It does not mean
Speaker 1: that women are incapable of making rational decisions though. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: no more than than men. Uh for sure. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think the advantage in examining this research, or any research
Speaker 1: like this, is to take it and compare it to
Speaker 1: your own decisions. You know, not necessarily to second guess
Speaker 1: your instincts, but ask questions about your behavior. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: research on same male sex driven consumer choices have certainly
Speaker 1: forced me to stop and examine, you know, to say, well,
Speaker 1: why am I considering this album over and now there?
Speaker 1: Why am I considering uh you know this, uh, this,
Speaker 1: this movie, this TV title whatever. Uh. So it's not
Speaker 1: about it's not about seeing the puppeteer strings and accepting
Speaker 1: them or even about breaking them, but figuring out, like
Speaker 1: what is the shape of your own autonomy and uh
Speaker 1: and and what are some of the many factors that
Speaker 1: are influencing your behavior? Yeah, I mean I thought the
Speaker 1: same thing. I'm like, I have absolutely had moments where like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I'm sad or I'm in kind
Speaker 1: of like a different mood, and they go and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do I'm gonna go to the comic books store
Speaker 1: and just buy a big pile of comic books or
Speaker 1: or I'll buy a bunch of records. You know, they'll
Speaker 1: they'll make me feel better. And who knows what kind
Speaker 1: of hormonal fluctuations I'm going through when that's happening. Who
Speaker 1: knows is actually important here because like maybe we should
Speaker 1: be tracking that in men as well. It's worth remembering
Speaker 1: there's research that other hormones like testosterone and cortisol also
Speaker 1: have effects on important human behaviors. So look, men aren't
Speaker 1: off the hook here, uh, And maybe that's a future
Speaker 1: episode for us to consider. So if if you're interested
Speaker 1: in that, you know, maybe we can look into seeing
Speaker 1: if there's studies related to that. So that is the
Speaker 1: breakdown here, controversial stuff. I think it's kind of interesting though,
Speaker 1: especially when you when you put in the business aspects.
Speaker 1: So what do you out there think? You know, you've
Speaker 1: heard these arguments, You've heard this research, do you agree
Speaker 1: with it, do you agree with the criticisms of it?
Speaker 1: And what do you think about this marketing? Like is
Speaker 1: this a valid route for us to be going down
Speaker 1: in a capitalistic society? Which is basically like let's figure
Speaker 1: out how to aim like laser focus to their biology
Speaker 1: and that's how we'll get them to spend money to
Speaker 1: other contracts. Yeah, it's like hormonal mind reading or even
Speaker 1: hormonal mind control. Right, So you can let us know.
Speaker 1: We're on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, and Instagram. Those are all
Speaker 1: places where you can talk to us or find this
Speaker 1: episode and download it. So check it out and remember
Speaker 1: Tripod month is going on, and I recommend that you
Speaker 1: try slings and arrows, which is where I learned about
Speaker 1: Christina Durante's research to begin with. You can find this
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and all other episodes,
Speaker 1: including videos, blog posts, et cetera, at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com and if you want to send
Speaker 1: us an email to give us your feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or others that we've recorded, to simply shoot us
Speaker 1: one at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
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