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Published on: October 24, 2025
Women's fertility across the cycle increases the short-term attractiveness of creative intelligence
Martie G Haselton1, Geoffrey F Miller2
1Department of Psychology, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, 90095-1538, Los Angeles, CA. haselton@ucla.edu.
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.
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