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Human Sexual Cycles are Driven by Culture and Match Collective Moods

Overview of attention for article published in Scientific Reports, December 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
86 news outlets
blogs
8 blogs
twitter
257 X users
facebook
10 Facebook pages
wikipedia
6 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user
reddit
4 Redditors
video
1 YouTube creator

Citations

dimensions_citation
20 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
54 Mendeley
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Title
Human Sexual Cycles are Driven by Culture and Match Collective Moods
Published in
Scientific Reports, December 2017
DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-18262-5
Pubmed ID
Authors

Ian B. Wood, Pedro L. Varela, Johan Bollen, Luis M. Rocha, Joana Gonçalves-Sá

Abstract

Human reproduction does not happen uniformly throughout the year and what drives human sexual cycles is a long-standing question. The literature is mixed with respect to whether biological or cultural factors best explain these cycles. The biological hypothesis proposes that human reproductive cycles are an adaptation to the seasonal (hemisphere-dependent) cycles, while the cultural hypothesis proposes that conception dates vary mostly due to cultural factors, such as holidays. However, for many countries, common records used to investigate these hypotheses are incomplete or unavailable, biasing existing analysis towards Northern Hemisphere Christian countries. Here we show that interest in sex peaks sharply online during major cultural and religious celebrations, regardless of hemisphere location. This online interest, when shifted by nine months, corresponds to documented human births, even after adjusting for numerous factors such as language and amount of free time due to holidays. We further show that mood, measured independently on Twitter, contains distinct collective emotions associated with those cultural celebrations. Our results provide converging evidence that the cyclic sexual and reproductive behavior of human populations is mostly driven by culture and that this interest in sex is associated with specific emotions, characteristic of major cultural and religious celebrations.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 257 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 54 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 54 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 15%
Student > Bachelor 8 15%
Researcher 6 11%
Student > Master 5 9%
Professor 4 7%
Other 8 15%
Unknown 15 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Computer Science 8 15%
Psychology 5 9%
Engineering 4 7%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3 6%
Medicine and Dentistry 3 6%
Other 14 26%
Unknown 17 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 901. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 December 2023.
All research outputs
#19,386
of 25,587,485 outputs
Outputs from Scientific Reports
#307
of 141,879 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#370
of 449,024 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scientific Reports
#11
of 4,299 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,587,485 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 141,879 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 449,024 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4,299 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.