A new but small study suggests the amount of estrogen in a woman’s birth control pill may affect how she perceives other women. Whereas past research has shown an estrogen effect from the pill on a woman’s mating preferences as well as mate-guarding behavior, the new findings suggest that higher doses of the hormone in birth control medication further focuses the female brain on sexual competition. For the study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, researchers from the University of Trieste in Italy recruited 42 women mostly taking birth control medication, with several using a contraceptive vaginal ring. But although the study included no control group, lead researcher Valentina Piccoli said they were able to compare the effects of birth control pills with either ultra-low or high doses of estrogen. On a scale of 1 to 10, the women in the study ranked the importance of physical traits when shown photographs of men and women.
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