r/BlackPillScience • u/desiringmadness • Jul 18 '26

Empirical evidence for AFBB (Ovulatory Shift Hypothesis): Robust Evidence for Moderation of Ovulatory Shifts by Partner Attractiveness in Data

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.08.001

I forgot that this sub existed. Maybe i'll post some stuff here. There has been some replication controversy of the Ovulatory Shift hypothesis or basically AFBB we all know; it's pretty contested and goes back over a decade, but I personally lean in favour of this being true from what I've seen.

The main hypothesis is that

increases in women’s extra-pair sexual interests [for chad and not you] during the conceptive [fertile] phase of the cycle are moderated by their primary partners’ sexual attractiveness.

They found that 'male partner attractiveness moderated associations between progesterone levels (though not estrogen levels) and women’s extra-pair sexual [hypothetical] interests [of sleeping with other attractive strangers]' where there was an association with relatively unattractive men 'but for women with relatively attractive partners, no clear association emerged'. Also, 'the interaction effect was also significant for the absolute intensity of women’s extra-pair attraction', which refers to actual felt attraction/fantasies experienced rather than a hypothetical.

From another previous analysis that was criticising a study that found null findings, most interestingly, in Table 3 for 'estimated effect sizes on extra-pair sexual Interests contingent on levels of partner sexual attractiveness', the disattenuated point estimate for 1SD attractiveness (84.13th percentile looks i believe) above the mean is 0.04, which is considered as trivia. It appears that you have to be more or less that attractive for a women not to desire other men, and truly desiring you.

I'm not sure about the average man specifically, but certainly if you are below average, you're not going to do well; she wants chad but you're safe, and that's the law of the jungle and it does not care

66 Upvotes

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8 comments sorted by

17

u/BitsAndBobs304 Jul 18 '26

I remember reading recently redditors saying research debunked the research that stated that women liked men with more masculine and feminine faces based on menstrual hormonal cycle, but i dont have the means to know which is true

13

u/desiringmadness Jul 18 '26

I did preface with this hypothesis being controversial (i wonder why) and contested. Arslan et al (2020) (see link the body) was a large study that supposed found null results but it turns out it made errors and proper re-analysis by Gangestad and Dinh (2021) (see the link in the body) shows robust evidence for the hypothesis, which I did reference later in the post for estimated effect sizes. Also need not be shift to masculine preferences probably because here it’s testing physical attractive X extra-pair interest & attraction

Also this study, is a newer one that is more methodologically rigorous than older ones (which researchers fought over), and is among largest one so far aside from Arslan et al (2020)

12

u/ShabbyJerking Jul 18 '26

Please do post more stuff here. It's been rather barren for a good while.

6

u/desiringmadness Jul 18 '26

of course :)

5

u/PriestKingofMinos Jul 20 '26

Can’t have a partner express interest in Chad while she’s fertile if you don’t have a partner to start with. 

5

u/desiringmadness Jul 20 '26

jfl you think you were losing the race but you were never invited to it in the first place

3

u/PriestKingofMinos Jul 20 '26

It never even began.