When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance

Significance

Seeking status is a fundamental human motive, but scholars disagree on the biological processes that underpin it. Here, I examine the relationship between the menstrual cycle and two pathways to human status attainment, showing that women seek status via prestige but not dominance when their likelihood of conception is high. Additional analyses show that women have higher self-esteem yet lose more dominance contests when fertile, a strategy that may paradoxically help them retain their influence and good social reputation. These results show that the menstrual cycle is a biological correlate of status seeking among women and that fertility may motivate them to maximize social capital through influence and admiration.

Abstract

Biological predictors of human dominance are hotly contested, with far-reaching implications for psychological sex differences and the placement of men and women in the social hierarchy. Most investigations have focused on dominance in men and testosterone, with diminished attention paid to dominance in women and other biological mechanisms. Investigating biological influences on other routes to status attainment popular among women—such as via prestige in addition to dominance—have also been neglected. Here, I examined whether status seeking via prestige and via dominance covaried with fertility probability in a citizen science project spanning 14 countries and 4 world regions. Across 4,179 observations, participants tracked their menstrual cycle characteristics, motivation for prestige and dominance, dominance contest outcomes, and three domains of self-esteem. Self-esteem is predicted by status within a group and helps individuals navigate social hierarchies. Bayesian mixed models controlling for menstruation indicated that the motivation to obtain status via prestige but not dominance peaked when conception was most likely, as did dominance contest losses and two self-esteem domains. Fertility appears to reorient female psychology toward prestige-based strategies to success, enhancing women’s desire for social capital through influence and admiration but not through fear, coercion, or intimidation. These insights fundamentally advance the understanding of the biological correlates of status seeking among women. They further suggest that fertility motivates not only mating competition but gaining rank and positive regard in social hierarchies.