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Influence of menstrual cycle on volunteering behaviour

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Abstract

RANDOM population sampling is rarely achieved in human research. Rosenthal and Rosnow1 have concluded that human behavioural science is largely the science of punctual college sophomore volunteers. Volunteers typically have more education, higher occupational status, earlier birth position, lower chronological age, higher need for approval and lower authoritarianism than nonvolunteers2–9. We report evidence here to suggest that the volunteering behaviour of college women varies with the stage of their menstrual cycle. This implies that many experiments which report perceptual, cognitive or physiological response differences between the sexes may be biassed in systematic fashion by sampling error.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Monell Chemical Senses Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104

    RICHARD L. DOTY

  2. Department of Psychology, University of San Francisco, San Fransisco, California, 94117

    COLIN SILVERTHORNE

Authors
  1. RICHARD L. DOTY
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  2. COLIN SILVERTHORNE
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DOTY, R., SILVERTHORNE, C. Influence of menstrual cycle on volunteering behaviour. Nature 254, 139–140 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/254139a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/254139a0

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