"HORMONES MAKE CHICKS VOTE" PROFESSOR IS EX-PUBLICIST WHO SURE KNOWS HOW TO GET HER NAME IN PRINT

(UPDATE: CNN has pulled the story cited in this post. The Yahoo cached version is still up for now. A Texas NBC affiliate has posted the story here.)

This CNN story is getting a lot of attention:

Do Hormones Drive Women's Votes?

... New research suggests that hormones may influence female voting choices differently, depending on whether a woman is single or in a committed relationship.

... Kristina Durante of the University of Texas, San Antonio and colleagues ... found that during the fertile time of the month, when levels of the hormone estrogen are high, single women appeared more likely to vote for Obama and committed women appeared more likely to vote for Romney, by a margin of at least 20%, Durante said....

Here's how Durante explains this: When women are ovulating, they "feel sexier," and therefore lean more toward liberal attitudes on abortion and marriage equality. Married women have the same hormones firing, but tend to take the opposite viewpoint on these issues, she says.

"I think they're overcompensating for the increase of the hormones motivating them to have sex with other men," she said. It's a way of convincing themselves that they're not the type to give in to such sexual urges, she said....

Dames! You can't trust them with serious stuff like voting!

Now, the first you need to know about Professor Durante is that although her Ph.D. and M.A. are in psychology, she's an assistant professor of marketing. That's according to her LinkedIn profile, which also tells us that she used to be Planet Hollywood's head of publicity and the assistant to a VP of publicity at MGM.

So she knows a little bit about selling, and about getting press attention -- skills she's clearly using in her current career. It's curious how much of her research seems expressly designed to garner headlines in the non-academic press.

2009: Beautiful Women More Likely to Have Affair Because of Sex Hormone

Dr Kristina Durante, a psychologist and author of the report, said: "Physically attractive women receive more male attention and, when in relationships, are more likely to be the targets of mate poaching. "Attractive women also have especially high mating standards.

"Because it's difficult to obtain a partner who is a good provider and also has good genes, women often have to trade off between having a long-term mate who provides continual material resources and more physically attractive, short-term sexual partners with good genetic resources..."

2010: Women Buy Sexier Clothes When Fertile: Researchers

... Dr. Kristina Durante, who led the research, told QMI Agency that a change in hormones prompts women to out-primp nearby females.

"Across species, when a female is fertile they ... act to attract the best mate at that time," she said....

2012: Lack of Men Leads Women To Choose Career Over Family

... "Most women don't realize it, but an important factor in a woman's career choice is how easy or difficult it is to find a husband," said Kristina Durante, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing at the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Business.

"When a woman's dating prospects look bleak, as is the case when there are few available men, she is much more likely to delay starting a family and instead seek a career." ...

2102: Why Women Choose Bad Boys

Women choose bad boys because their hormones make them, new research suggests. When ovulating a woman's hormones influence who she sees as good potential fathers, and they specifically pick sexier men over obviously more dependablemen.

"Previous research has shown in the week near ovulation women become attracted to sexy, rebellious and handsome men like George Clooney or James Bond," study researcher Kristina Durante, of The University of Texas at San Antonio, said in a statement. "But until now it was unclear why women would ever think it's wise to pursue long-term relationships with these kinds of men."...

Give the prof credit: she has serious attention-grabbing skills. You don't suppose that might possibly be what's driving her research, more than a search for scientific truth, do you?