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IntroductionConsidered a part of the behavioral immune system (BIS), disgust sensitivity is expected to be adjusting as a response to the actual level of the environmental health risks.MethodsIn this preregistered study, we tested the hypothesis that disgust sensitivity would be higher during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period in pregnant women. In this between-subject study with a longitudinal trend design, we administered the Disgust Scale-Revised to 200 pregnant women before the pandemic and to 350 pregnant women during the pandemic.ResultsWe found a small but significant effect of the pandemic on disgust sensitivity, such that higher disgust sensitivity was found in women pregnant during the pandemic. This effect was stronger in primiparae, however, the interaction between parity and the pandemic period was not significant. Disgust sensitivity decreased with age. No differences in terms of nausea and vomiting were found between the women pregnant before and during the pandemic.DiscussionOur findings indicate that although BIS is presumed to function as a complex mechanism to prevent health-threatening behaviors, its activation in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic is rather weak.

Women with red hair color, i.e., 1–9% of female Europeans, tend to be the subject of various stereotypes about their sexually liberated behavior. The aim of the present case–control study was to explore whether a connection between red hair color and sexual behavior really exists using data from 110 women (34% redheaded) and 93 men (22% redheaded). Redheadedness in women, correlated with various traits related to sexual life, namely with higher sexual desire as measured by Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, with higher sexual activity and more sexual partners of the preferred gender over the past year, earlier initiation of sexual life, and higher sexual submissiveness. Structural equation modelling, however, showed that sexual desire of redheaded women mediated neither their higher sexual activity nor their higher number of sexual partners. These results indirectly indicate that the apparently more liberated sexual behavior in redheaded women could be the consequence of potential mates’ frequent attempts to have sex with them. Our results contradicted the three other tested models, specifically the models based on the assumption of different physiology, faster life history strategy, and altered self-perception of redheaded women induced by stereotypes about them. Naturally, the present study cannot say anything about the validity of other potential models that were not subjects of testing.