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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0PLOS One

Fertility increases women’s desire for conspicuous luxury

  • Aekyoung Kim1
  • Kristina M. Durante2
  • Juliano Laran3
  • Lambrianos Nikiforidis4
  • Vladas Griskevicius5
5 affiliations
  1. 1Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, Republic of Korea
  2. 2Rutgers Business School, Newark, New Jersey, United States of America
  3. 3Schema Behavioral Science, Newberry, Florida, United States of America
  4. 4School of Economics and Business, SUNY Oneonta, Oneonta, New York, United States of America
  5. 5Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America
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Abstract

This paper examines hormonal fluctuations associated with fertility as one of the reasons behind women’s desire for luxury. We suggest that women engage in conspicuous luxury consumption during ovulation, when they have a physiologically activated mating goal, because doing so helps women be noticed by men. Being noticed by as many men as possible increases the likelihood of attracting a desired partner for a romantic relationship. The finding that ovulation—the time of peak fertility—increases women’s desire to purchase conspicuous luxury goods challenges previous research suggesting that women use luxury to signal high standards and limit their pool of potential partners. We reconcile this apparent contradiction by proposing a two-phase mating process: women first seek to attract a broad pool of potential partners (attraction phase), then select from among them for a romantic relationship (selection phase). These findings have benefits for researchers’ understanding of how ovulation changes women’s behavior towards men, and how mating motives can be a driver of the desire for luxury and conspicuous consumption in general.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{kim2026fertility,
  title = {{Fertility increases women’s desire for conspicuous luxury}},
  author = {Aekyoung Kim and Kristina M. Durante and Juliano Laran and Lambrianos Nikiforidis and Vladas Griskevicius},
  journal = {PLOS One},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0354126},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354126},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Fertility increases women’s desire for conspicuous luxury
AU  - Aekyoung Kim
AU  - Kristina M. Durante
AU  - Juliano Laran
AU  - Lambrianos Nikiforidis
AU  - Vladas Griskevicius
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/02
JO  - PLOS One
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0354126
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354126
AB  - This paper examines hormonal fluctuations associated with fertility as one of the reasons behind women’s desire for luxury. We suggest that women engage in conspicuous luxury consumption during ovulation, when they have a physiologically activated mating goal, because doing so helps women be noticed by men. Being noticed by as many men as possible increases the likelihood of attracting a desired partner for a romantic relationship. The finding that ovulation—the time of peak fertility—increases women’s desire to purchase conspicuous luxury goods challenges previous research suggesting that women use luxury to signal high standards and limit their pool of potential partners. We reconcile this apparent contradiction by proposing a two-phase mating process: women first seek to attract a broad pool of potential partners (attraction phase), then select from among them for a romantic relationship (selection phase). These findings have benefits for researchers’ understanding of how ovulation changes women’s behavior towards men, and how mating motives can be a driver of the desire for luxury and conspicuous consumption in general.
SN  - 1932-6203
ER  -