Females often prefer odour of dominant males. Dominance is considered a honest signal of
genetic quality of a male. Body odour plays an important role in human mate-choice as well.
Our results suggest that womens’ preference for the odour of dominant men peaks around
ovulation. The strongest preference was found in a group of non-single women in their fertile
phase. This is consistent with the idea that women have evolved a mixed mating strategy i.e.
they prefer genetically high quality men as sexual partners when conception is possible, and
males willing to invest as social partners in other phases of menstrual cycle.
Females of several animal species prefer odour of dominant males. It is supposed that
dominance is a honest signal of genetic quality of a male. Our results suggest that womens’
preference for the odour of dominant men peaks around ovulation. Moreover, the strongest
preference was found in a group of non-single women in their fertile phase. This is consistent
with the idea that women have evolved a mixed mating strategy i.e. they prefer genetically
high quality men as sexual partners when conception is possible, and males willing to invest
as social partners in other phases of menstrual cycle.