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Risk of Conception

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science
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Synonyms

Daily fecundability; Probability of fertilization

Definition

The day-specific probability that a single act of intercourse will result in conception.

Introduction

Conception risk refers to the probability that a single act of unprotected coitus will result in conception. A woman’s conception risk varies as a function of life’s historical, contextual, and cyclical factors, all of which are accompanied by different hormonal milieus that modulate conception risk (Motta-Mena and Puts 2017). Researchers have drawn on evolutionary theory to posit that women’s mating psychology may change in relation to conception risk in adaptive ways. Further, women may adjust their attitudes and behaviors toward men and other women – and be perceived differently by other men and women – as a function of conception risk. Here, we briefly review work suggesting that mating psychology, intrasexual competition, and perceptions by men and other women vary with conception risk.

Although conception risk...

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Correspondence to Talia Shirazi .

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© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Shirazi, T., Puts, D. (2019). Risk of Conception. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1884-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1884-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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