Religion Causes Decreases in Women’s Provocativeness of Dress

Long-term mating strategies are associated with greater religiosity and studies demonstrate that exposure to religious stimuli down-regulate traits associated with short-term mating strategies in men. Based on evidence that women might also occasionally pursue short-term mating strategies, we evaluated the effects of religiosity on a trait associated with women’s mating strategies: Provocativeness of dress (POD). We predicted that women’s baseline religiosity would be negatively correlated with their POD (measured via skin exposure) on the premise that POD is typically associated with women’s short-term mating strategies. We also predicted that women who completed a religious writing task would illustrate less skin exposure than their peers when asked what they would wear to a hypothetical social gathering with attractive members of the opposite sex in attendance. In a college sample of 817 participants, women (but not men) who classified themselves as highly religious exposed less skin in their day-to-day lives. Likewise, women (but not men) who completed a religious writing task illustrated less skin exposure than did their peers. A significant religiosity by writing task condition assignment interaction indicated that the religious writing task was more effective in reducing skin exposure for highly religious participants than it was for less religious participants.