ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
The evolved psychological mechanisms of fertility motivation: hunting for causation in a sea of correlation.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- High-Risk Fertility Behavior and Its Associated Factors Among Women in Wad Madani Maternity Hospital, Sudan: A Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Fertility protection in the reproductive-age population: A evolutionary concept analysis.International journal of nursing sciences · 2026Review
- Job quality and fertility intentions among Chinese migrant workers: the role of traditional fertility beliefs.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- From virtual attachments to real-world fertility desires: emotional pathways in game character attachment and parasocial relationships.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Evaluating and predicting exclusive breastfeeding behaviour based on an energy vitality model during women's lactation: a longitudinal study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- When parental care hurts: extended parental care and the evolution of overparenting.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Review
- Immediate Antecedents of Intentions for Having Children in Southeast Iranian Women.Korean journal of family medicine · 2023Article
- Extrinsic and Existential Mortality Risk in Reproductive Decision-Making: Examining the Effects of COVID-19 Experience and Climate Change Beliefs.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Article
- Intention of having a second child among infertile and fertile women attending outpatient gynecology clinics in three major cities in China: a cross-sectional study.Human reproduction open · 2018Article
- Understanding variation in human fertility: what can we learn from evolutionary demography?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- Developmental influences on fertility decisions by women: an evolutionary perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- Fitness Costs of Insecure Romantic Attachment: The Role of Reproductive Motivation and Long-Term Mating.Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behaviorArticle
- Adverse Childhood Environment: Relationship With Sexual Risk Behaviors and Marital Status in a Large American Sample.Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behaviorArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cultural, ecological, familial and physiological factors consistently influence fertility behaviours, however, the proximate psychological mechanisms underlying fertility decisions in humans are poorly understood. Understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying human fertility may illuminate the final processes by which some of these known predictors have their influence. To date, research into the psychological mechanisms underlying fertility has been fragmented. Aspects of reproductive psychology have been examined by researchers in a range of fields, but the findings have not been systematically integrated in one review. We provide such a review, examining current theories and research on psychological mechanisms of fertility. We examine the methods and populations used in the research, as well as the disciplines and theoretical perspectives from which the work has come. Much of the work that has been done to date is methodologically limited to examining correlations between ecological, social and economic factors and fertility. We propose, and support with examples, the use of experimental methods to differentiate causal factors from correlates. We also discuss weaknesses in the experimental research, including limited work with non-WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) populations.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.