Do women expose themselves to more health-related risks in certain phases of the menstrual cycle? A meta-analytic review.

Researchers have increasingly examined the menstrual cycle as a potential source of day-to-day variation in women's cognitions, motivations, and behavior. Within this literature, several lines of research have examined the impact of the menstrual cycle on women's engagement in activities that could negatively affect their health (alcohol and tobacco consumption, sexual behavior, risk recognition). However, findings have been mixed, leaving it unclear whether women may expose themselves to more health-related risks during certain phases of the cycle.

Exposure to perceived male rivals raises men's testosterone on fertile relative to nonfertile days of their partner's ovulatory cycle.

The challenge hypothesis posits that male testosterone levels increase in the presence of fertile females to facilitate mating and increase further in the presence of male rivals to facilitate male-male competition. This hypothesis has been supported in a number of nonhuman animal species. We conducted an experiment to test the challenge hypothesis in men.

Changes in women's feelings about their romantic relationships across the ovulatory cycle.

According to the dual mating hypothesis, women possess two overlapping suites of mate-choice mechanisms: one leading to preferences for sexually desirable men who have high-fitness genes and one leading to preferences for men who are able to invest in a woman and her children. Evidence increasingly demonstrates that women's preference for sexual desirability (but not investment attractiveness) increases when women are most fertile within the ovulatory cycle. Little is known, however, about the implications of these preference shifts for women's relationships with their long-term partners.

Body odor attractiveness as a cue of impending ovulation in women: evidence from a study using hormone-confirmed ovulation.

Scent communication plays a central role in the mating behavior of many nonhuman mammals but has often been overlooked in the study of human mating. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that men may perceive women's high-fertility body scents (collected near ovulation) as more attractive than their low-fertility body scents. The present study provides a methodologically rigorous replication of this finding, while also examining several novel questions.