Playboy Playmates, the Dow Jones, Consumer Sentiment, 9/11, and the Doomsday Clock: a Critical Examination of the Environmental Security Hypothesis

Drawing on evolutionary social psychology, Pettijohn and Tesser’s (1999) Environmental Security Hypothesis (ESH) proposes that during threatening times, people seek mates with more mature features. Pettijohn and Jungeberg (2004) found that Playboy Playmates of the Year (PMOYs), who are determined partly by popularity, exhibited more mature features (older, taller, heavier, larger waist-to-hip ratios [WHRs], lower body mass indexes [BMIs]) during times of hardship. Their composite measure of hard times, however, was heterogeneous; it was unclear weather the effects were driven by economic (unemployment) or existential (suicides, homicides) hardships. The present study critically examined the ESH by replicating and extending Pettijohn and Jungeberg while distinguishing between economic and existential threats. Forty-eight years (1960-2007) of PMOY measures (age, bust, waist, hips, height, weight, WHR, and BMI), two economic measures (Dow Jones industrial average [DJIA], consumer sentiment index [CSI]), and two existential threat measures (pre-versus-post-9/11 years, Doomsday Clock changes) were analyzed. Changes in economic indexes were either unassociated (CSI) or contrary (DJIA) to the ESH, such that taller, heavier women were preferred during prosperous markets. Supporting the ESH, increases in existential threats such as nuclear annihilation (Doomsday Clock) were related to older women and lower BMIs. The efficacy of the ESH is discussed.