Question 1

Chapter 4: Results

4.2. Objective One

4.2.1. Question 1

‘Are male attractiveness and perceived masculinity judged similarly?’

Table 12 below indicates measures of concordance amongst ranking measurements of attractiveness and masculinity for both the VS and SS. The results indicate that attractiveness and masculinity judgements were significantly concordant amongst the VS, although this was not the case for the SS. Although, the test of concordance was significant, the 𝑊̃ statistic indicates only a small degree of agreement between the judges. These results mirror previous finding in this study whereby visual stimuli are more concordant than scent stimuli.

Table 12: 𝑾̃ between attractiveness and masculinity rankings

𝑊̃ χ² Sig Decision

VS 0.040038 12.41167 0.05 Reject H0

SS 0.00362 1.12212 0.98 Fail to reject

H0 A Friedman’s two-way ANOVA was used to estimate the difference between measures of attractiveness and masculinity for stimuli using overall median ranks from each group. The original chi-square values for comparisons between attractiveness and masculinity for the VS (χ²=0.786, df=5, NS) and the SS (χ²=1.071,df=5, NS) were both not significant and when bootstrapping was applied, the χ² value increased for both the VS (𝜃_𝑥² = 2.29, 𝑑𝑓 = 5, 𝑁𝑆), and the SS (𝜃_𝑥² = 4.5, 𝑑𝑓 = 5, 𝑁𝑆) although still not significantly. Both the original and bootstrapped χ² values fall within the confidence interval for the VS (LC=0.571: UC=6.) and the SS (LC=0.571: UC=6.857) suggesting that the sample statistics are within the 95%

confidence range for the estimated population statistic. The lack of significance leads to a failure to reject the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference between the rankings of the stimuli items and therefore the researcher assumes that attractiveness and masculinity

for both the visual and scent stimuli are ranked significantly differently by the judges as is suggested by the Friedman’s test.

According to Penton-Voak, et al., (2001) and Pillsworth and Haselton, (2006) women are most receptive to and influenced by the association between attractiveness and masculinity. It is stated that the association between attractiveness and masculinity will either be positively correlated during the follicular phase of a women’s menstrual cycle or negatively correlated or uncorrelated at any other time of her cycle. It was also noted previously that men may be receptive to T and therefore concordant in their rankings of masculinity as according to Gabrielson (2013) and Eisenegger, Haushofer, and Fehr, (2011) men are able to detect and tend to behave differently when exposed to highly masculine men, or more correctly men with higher levels of testsosterone. This hypothesis will be explored in more depth in the investigation of objective two.

To explore the hypothesis that women at their most fertile ovulatory phase will find masculine men more attractive than at the least fertile phase of their menstrual cycle, a Friedman’s two-way analysis of variance was conducted and bootstrapping was applied. The chi square bootstrap statistic for the VS (𝜃_𝑥²=9.37, df=5, NS) is much greater than the original chi-square statistic (χ²=5.607, df=5, NS) calculated with the Friedman’s test for the VS. The confidence interval calculated using the bootstrapped data suggests that with 95%

confidence it is predicted that the mean chi-square statistic of the estimated population will fall between LC= 4.571 and UC=16.571. In addition, both the original and bootstrapped chi- square statistics are not significant at the level of for α=0.05. Therefore the null hyothesis that there is no significant difference between the objects being ranked, is not rejected this suggests that perhaps the women at their luteal phase ranked the attractiveness of the VS differently to the women at their follicular phase.

The same outcome was illustrated by the results of Friedman’s test for the SS. However, in this case the chi-square statistic is slightly decreased by the bootstrap. For the Friedman’s two way ANOVA, the chi-square statistics from both the original (χ²=3.286, df= 5, NS) and bootstrap (𝜃_𝑥²=3.177, df=5, NS) data were not significant and therefore the null hypothesis that there are no differences between the stimuli rankings was not rejected. It may therefore, be assumed that luteal and follicular phase women rank the stimuli differently. The

confidence interal (LC=0.571:UC=7.607) estimated by the bootstrapped Friedman’s suggests that the real world statistic fall with 95% confidence within that interval.

Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was calculated for each measure of attractiveness and masculinity for each of the stimuli, for women in general, at the lutel phase of their cycle and women estimated to be at the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle. All calculations were bootstrapped and are reported in table 13. For women in general, the original calculations showed that there was significant agreement in rankings of VA, as well as rankings of VA and masculinity combined. With bootstrapping applied the 𝑊̃statistic increased in all of the measures for women in general. Once bootstrapped not only were the rankings of VA and VA and VM combined, significantly concordant, but the measure of VM as well as SA. In all the measures regarding women in general the original 𝑊̃ statistic fell within the 95%

confidence intervals as represented in table 13 below. Thus, the sample can be assumed to represent the population estimated from the bootstrap.

For women in the follicular phase of their cycle (ovulation), VA, SA as well as VA and VM combined were all shown to be significantly concordant before the bootstrap was applied (table 13). Thus, indicating that women at their most fertile phase of their menstrual cycle agreed significantly more about the attractiveness of both the stimuli and, most importantly to this hypothesis, there was significant concordance in the rankings of VA and VM combined.

The 𝑊̃ statistic for VA indicates a moderate to high degree of agreement meaning that women at ovulation agree highly on the VA of men. Although there was agreement about the concordance of attractiveness and masculinity rankings combined for the VS, there was no significant concordance for the same measure of the SS. This is incongruent with the expected alternate hypothesis that there would be significant agreement amongst ovulating women regarding the attractiveness and masculinity of male scent. Furthermore, although the bootstrap of these calculations did increase the mean estimate of the 𝑊̃ statistic, it did not change any of the outcomes to reject the null hypothesis. In all the measures calculated for follicular phase women the original sample statistic fell within the confidence interval of the estimated population and therefore, it can be assumed that the original sample falls within the population parameter estimates.

For women at the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle rankings of VA were the only measure with significant concordance before the bootstrap. Before the bootstrap there were no other significant outcomes regarding concordance. This was expected as previous literature suggests that non-ovulating women would be less attracted to masculine men and furthermore non-ovulating women more anosmic, (less likely to detect scents) (Pillsworth, Haselton, &

Buss, 2004). The bootstrap of the measurements for women in their luteal phase indicated that the mean 𝑊̃ for rankings combining VA and VM was significant. It was not expected that the bootstrapped real world estimate of concordance would be significant for luteal phase women. Please refer to table 13 for a summary of the 𝑊̃ test statistics.

Table 13: Summary of bootstrapped 𝑾̃statistics for women at different phases of their menstrual cycle

𝑊̃ Sig 𝜃_𝑊̃ SE Sig

95% confidence

limits decision Lower

bound Upper bound

Women in general

VA 0.33 <0.001 0.36 0.121 0.01 0.145 0.609 reject

VM 0.065 NS 0.109 0.056 0.05 0.028 0.249 reject

VA and VM 0.09 0.01 0.113 0.05 0.01 0.035 0.23 reject

SA 0.086 NS 0.128 0.056 0.05 0.032 0.244 reject

SM 0.043 NS 0.088 0.044 NS 0.023 0.194 fail to

reject

SA and SM 0.008 NS 0.032 0.019 NS 0.006 0.079 fail to

reject

Follicular phase

VA 0.636 <0.001 0.678 0.105 0.01 0.479 0.88 reject

VM 0.086 NS 0.185 0.115 NS 0.032 0.486 fail to

reject VA and VM 0.147 0.05 0.183 0.102 0.01 0.036 0.422 reject

SA 0.253 0.05 0.336 0.104 0.01 0.179 0.58 reject

SM 0.074 NS 0.177 0.087 NS 0.043 0.382 fail to

reject

SA and SM 0.054 NS 0.102 0.054 NS 0.022 0.229 fail to

reject

Luteal phase

VA 0.213 0.05 0.279 0.129 0.01 0.07 0.549 reject

VM 0.056 NS 0.132 0.077 NS 0.022 0.321 fail to

reject

VA and VM 0.068 NS 0.103 0.048 0.05 0.031 0.215 reject

SA 0.065 NS 0.144 0.039 NS 0.022 0.37 fail to

reject

SM 0.06 NS 0.138 0.075 NS 0.03 0.318 fail to

reject

SA and SM 0.025 NS 0.063 0.093 NS 0.01 0.156 fail to

reject