Our findings suggest that the effect of fertility on women’s
desire for new options in men activates a variety-seeking
mind-set that subsequently leads women to desire greater
variety in the marketplace. In addition, we showed that a
weakened desire for variety in men diminished the desire
for variety in products. However, the current findings do not
disambiguate why and how an adaptation designed to motivate
women to consider a wider pool of mating options
would lead to a generalized variety-seeking mind-set. One
possibility is that variety seeking at high fertility is not generalized
but specific to high reward, low threat choice domains.
For example, fertility should lead women to seek
variety in domains that are relatively safe (e.g., saying yes
to a conversation with more men in a speed-dating scenario
or trying different candy bars) but not in choice domains
that involve a higher degree of risk or threat (e.g., saying