title: Women's fertility across the cycle increases the short-term attractiveness of creative intelligence.
abstract: Male provisioning ability may have evolved as a "good dad" indicator through sexual selection, whereas male creativity may have evolved partly as a "good genes" indicator. If so, women near peak fertility (midcycle) should prefer creativity over wealth, especially in short-term mating. Forty-one normally cycling women read vignettes describing creative but poor men vs. uncreative but rich men. Women's estimated fertility predicted their short-term (but not long-term) preference for creativity over wealth, in both their desirability ratings of individual men (r=.40, p<.01) and their forced-choice decisions between men (r=.46, p<.01). These preliminary results are consistent with the view that creativity evolved at least partly as a good genes indicator through mate choice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, 90095-1538, Los Angeles, CA. haselton@ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Martie G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Haselton
authors.affiliation: University of New Mexico, USA.
authors.forename: Geoffrey F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Miller
keywords: Art; Business; Creativity, Female mate choice; Fertility; Good genes; Intelligence; Menstrual cycle; Mental fitness indicators; Ovulation; Psychological attractiveness; Wealth