IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0210162.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

No evidence that women using oral contraceptives have weaker preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s faces

Author

Listed:
  • Urszula M Marcinkowska
  • Amanda C Hahn
  • Anthony C Little
  • Lisa M DeBruine
  • Benedict C Jones

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that women using oral contraceptives show weaker preferences for masculine men than do women not using oral contraceptives. Such research would be consistent with the hypothesis that steroid hormones influence women’s preferences for masculine men. Recent large-scale longitudinal studies, however, have found limited evidence linking steroid hormones to masculinity preferences. Given the relatively small samples used in previous studies investigating putative associations between masculinity preferences and oral contraceptive use, we compared the facial masculinity preferences of women using oral contraceptives and women not using oral contraceptives in a large online sample of 6482 heterosexual women. We found no evidence that women using oral contraceptives had weaker preferences for male facial masculinity than did women not using oral contraceptives. These findings add to a growing literature suggesting that links between reproductive hormones and preferences are more limited than previously proposed.

Suggested Citation

  • Urszula M Marcinkowska & Amanda C Hahn & Anthony C Little & Lisa M DeBruine & Benedict C Jones, 2019. "No evidence that women using oral contraceptives have weaker preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s faces," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0210162
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210162
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210162&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0210162?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0210162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.