1. The More Fertile, the More Creative: Changes in Women’s Creative Potential across the Ovulatory Cycle
- Author
-
Aleksandra Szymkow and Katarzyna Galasinska
- Subjects
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,media_common.quotation_subject ,050109 social psychology ,Fertility ,Ovulatory cycle ,Article ,050105 experimental psychology ,Arousal ,Originality ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,ovulatory cycle ,Creative thinking ,creativity ,Probability ,media_common ,fertility ,05 social sciences ,signaling theory ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Flexibility (personality) ,Creativity ,Sexual selection ,Medicine ,Female ,women ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Creative thinking is a defining human feature. It provides novel solutions and as such undoubtedly has contributed to our survival. However, according to signaling theory, creativity could also have evolved through sexual selection as a potential fitness indicator. In our study, we tested one implication of this theory. Specifically, we hypothesized that if creativity can serve as a signal of women’s fitness, then we should observe an increase in creative thinking in the fertile phase of the ovulatory cycle compared to other non-fertile phases. In our study (N = 751), we tested creative potential throughout the ovulatory cycle. We found a positive correlation between the probability of conception and both creative originality and flexibility. Importantly, we also tested the mediating role of arousal in the relationship between the probability of conception and creative thinking. The results of our study are discussed in terms of signaling theory, through which women advertise their fitness with their creativity.
- Published
- 2021