# creativity vs wealth across the cycle

**URL:** <https://pheromonetalk.com/t/creativity-vs-wealth-across-the-cycle/841>\
**Category:** Studies & Abstracts\
**Created:** [November 4, 2006, 10:54am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/creativity-vs-wealth-across-the-cycle/841 "2006-11-04T10:54:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![PheroQuirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@PheroQuirk](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/PheroQuirk)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 10:54am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/creativity-vs-wealth-across-the-cycle/841/1 "2006-11-04T10:54:25Z")

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> **[Martie Haselton – UCLA Department of Psychology](https://www.psych.ucla.edu/faculty-page/haselton/)**

Male provisioning ability may have evolved as a ‘good dad’ indicator through sexual selection, while male creativity may have evolved partly as a ‘good genes’ indicator. If so, **women near peak fertility mid-cycle should prefer creativity over wealth, especially in short-term mating.** Forty-one normally cycling women read vignettes describing creative but poor men versus non-creative but rich men. Women’s estimated fertility predicted their short-term (but not long-term) preference for creativity over wealth, for both their desirability ratings of individual men (r = .40, p \< .01), and their forced-choice decisions between men (r = .46, p \< .01). These preliminary results are consistent with the view that creativity evolved at least partly as a good genes indicator through mate choice.