Dress to impress, goes the maxim. “Dress to conceive” might be more accurate. Women take greater care over their appearance when they are at peak levels of fertility.
Working with a group of 30 women aged 18 to 37, Martie Haselton of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues took two full-body photographs of each woman, one close to ovulation when the woman was highly fertile, and one at a point of low fertility in the menstrual cycle. Volunteers were then invited to decide which of the two photos showed the woman trying to look more attractive. They chose…
