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Different women experience hormonal contraceptives differently, reporting side effects on their sexuality and well-being that range from negative to positive. But research on such causal effects of hormonal contraceptives on psychological outcomes struggles both to identify average causal effects and capture the high heterogeneity in women’s treatment responses. In this study, we plan to leverage longitudinal data to improve our ability to separate the causal effects of hormonal contraceptives from other sources of association, including observed and unobserved confounding, reverse causality, and attrition. We will analyze data from up to 6,565 women who participated in PAIRFAM, a German longitudinal panel dataset consisting of 13 waves using Bayesian multilevel regressions. To deal with confounding and probe the robustness of findings, we will implement two analysis approaches: adjusted regression analyses and inverse probability of treatment weighting analyses. Furthermore, to move beyond average treatment effects, we will analyze heterogeneity in treatment responses and test whether interindividual differences can predict such heterogeneity. Lastly, we will investigate whether treatment response predicts women’s decisions about which contraceptive method to use in the long run. Our results will help to understand the impact of hormonal contraception on sexuality and well-being in a naturalistic setting in which women adapt their contraception to their own experiences.

Women’s capacity to reproduce varies over the life span, and developmental goals such as family formation are age-graded and shaped by social norms about the appropriate age for completing specific developmental tasks. Thus, a woman’s age may be linked to her ideas about what an ideal partner should be like. With the goals of replicating and extending prior research, in this study we examined the role of age in women’s partner preferences across the globe. We investigated associations of age with ideal long-term partner preferences in a cross-cultural sample of 17,254 single (i.e., unpartnered) heterosexual women, ages 18 to 67, from 147 countries. Data were collected via an online questionnaire, the Ideal Partner Survey. Confirming our preregistered hypotheses, we found no or only negligible age effects on preferences for kindness-supportiveness, attractiveness, financial security-successfulness, or education-intelligence. Age was, however, positively associated with preferences for confidence-assertiveness. Consistent with family formation goals, age was associated with an ideal partner’s parenting intentions (high until approximately age 30, then decreasing afterward). Age range deemed acceptable (and in particular, the discrepancy between one’s own age and the minimum ideal age of a partner) increased with age. This latter pattern also replicated in exploratory analyses based on subsamples of lesbian and bisexual women. In summary, age has a limited impact on partner preferences. Of the attributes investigated, only preference for confidence-assertiveness was linked with age. However, age range deemed acceptable and an ideal partner’s parenting intention, a dimension mostly neglected in earlier research, substantially vary with age.

Unsere langjährige Leiterin, Prof. Margarete Boos, ist zum 1.04.2023 in den Ruhestand getreten. Im SS 2023 wurde die Abteilungsleitung vertreten durch Frau Dr. Juliane Kämmer.