Does risk taking vary across the menstrual cycle?

Research documents a decline in risk-taking during peak fertility, which has been taken to suggest that fertile women may have inherent rape-avoidance adaptive mechanisms, particularly during the ovulatory phase. However, it cannot be known from previous research whether the decline in risk taking is specific to situations of increased risk of rape, or whether women become risk-averse more generally during peak fertility. Moreover, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the documented reduce in risk taking are not known. Across two studies, we examine the cognitive mechanisms associated with fertility-related risk avoidance by examining attentional biases to angry versus neutral males and females (to assess rape specificity), and fear-relevant versus neutral animals (to assess for domain generality). Study 1 employed a dot-probe paradigm to assess attentional biases to threatening versus neutral faces and animals. Against expectations, women were faster to respond to neutral faces when fertile compared to nonfertile. There were no fertility-related differences in attention to animals, thus suggesting fertility-related differences may be specific to social, or reproductively relevant stimuli. Study 2 built on the limitations of Study 1 by employing eyetracking apparatus for more direct oculomotor evidence of attention to threat. Overall, women fixated more quickly when fertile compared to nonfertile. Regarding fertility, women were slower to make their first fixations on angry compared to neutral faces when fertile, but spent a higher proportion of time fixating on angry versus neutral faces. Emotion did not influence first fixation speed when nonfertile. Importantly, fertility did not influence attention according to fear-relevance in animals. Thus, altogether, the findings appear to suggest fertility-related differences in attention are specific to reproductively relevant stimuli.

Rape avoidance over the menstrual cycle: An examination of the underlying psychological and physiological mechanisms

Fertile women may have inherent rape-avoidance mechanisms according to past research, with women differentially responding to a scenario implying rape compared to a control scenario when fertile (Petralia & Gallup, 2002). However, it is unclear whether these results mean that fertile women are responding to rape cues specifically, or physical danger cues more generally. Furthermore, the psychological and physiological mechanisms that motivate risk aversion are unknown. In this study, naturally cycling (NC) and hormonal contraceptive (HC) using females (N = 32) participated at two specific points of their menstrual cycle; during a phase of low and peak fertility in NC participants. Psychological and physiological responses to Petralia and Gallup’s (2002) original two scenarios, as well as three new scenarios, varying in risk of rape versus physical danger, were measured. HC participants’ responses did not fluctuate across testing sessions. For NC participants, there was an interaction between fertility status and scenario-type: handgrip was stronger for women when fertile following all scenarios involving males, even if there was no risk of rape or physical danger depicted. The results, therefore, indicate women are more responsive to scenarios involving men during peak fertility.

The Effect of Victim Resistance on Rape Completion: A Meta-Analysis

When confronted with a sexual attacker, women are often extremely concerned with avoiding rape completion. While narrative reviews typically suggest that the victim resistance is linked to rape avoidance, much of the existing literature relies on overlapping samples from the National Crime Victimization Survey. The current meta-analysis examines whether victim resistance is related to a greater likelihood of avoiding rape completion. Results from a systematic literature search across 25 databases supplemented by a search of the gray literature resulted in 4,581 hits of which seven studies met eligibility criteria for the review. Findings suggest that women who resist their attacker are significantly more likely than nonresisters to avoid rape completion. This finding held across analyses for physical resistance, verbal resistance, or resistance of any kind. Limitations of the analysis and policy implications are discussed, with particular focus on other research findings that resistance may be linked to greater victim injury.