Women who are regularly cycling exhibit different partner preferences than those who use hormonal contraception. Preliminary evidence appears to suggest that during pregnancy women’s partner preferences also diverge from those prevalent while ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
"In the past decade, researchers have begun to consider what impact hormonal contraceptive use may have on women’s mating psychology. Hormonal contraceptive use reduces naturally occurring cyclical hormonal variance and, as a consequence, women who use hormonal contraception have been shown to display different mating preferences and behaviors than women who are regularly cycling (e.g., Alvergne & Lummaa,
2010; Jones et al.,
2008; Penton-Voak et al.,
1999). For example, work by Little, Burriss, Petrie, Jones, and Roberts (
2013) has demonstrated that, upon initiation of hormonal contraception, women prefer lower levels of masculinity in their male partners. Moreover, these researchers showed that women who met their partner while using hormonal contraception were actually paired with men who had lower levels of masculinity as assessed via both facial measurements and perceptual judgments. This suggests that hormonal contraceptive use has the potential to influence women’s (adaptive) mate preferences (Alvergne & Lummaa,
2010; Roberts, Gosling, Carter, & Petrie,
2008)."