Comparative perspectives on human reproductive behavior

Cyclic changes in women's sexual desire are consistent with an ancestral pattern in which hormonal shifts around ovulation prime behavioral patterns. We use comparative primate data to evaluate the plausibility of a prominent hypothesis in evolutionary psychology, that cyclic variation in women's preferences for high-quality men leads them to seek out extra-pair sex at times of high conception risk. Our review suggests little reason to invoke substantially different reproductive strategies for human females versus other monogamous primates, which are distinguished behaviorally and morphologically from species that have adapted to female promiscuity. While cuckoldry clearly exists in human pair bonds, we conclude that its potential to transform female sexual strategies, or male morphology, has been overemphasized.

Duke Scholars

Author Melissa Emery Thompson Evolutionary Anthropology