This episode is also on Bilibili too.
Here I am again with another strange theory. This time, my target is the film Titanic. I strongly suspect that Jack and Rose actually had a child.
Near the end of Titanic, after the over-one-hundred-year-old Rose finishes telling the story of herself and Jack, she says: “I don’t even have a photograph of him. He lives on only in my memory now.”
But I don’t think Rose was telling the truth. Jack actually left something very important behind in this world—the product of his love with Rose. That’s right: I think Rose later gave birth to Jack’s child. The granddaughter who accompanies the elderly Rose on her return to the wreck site might actually be Jack’s descendant.
My reason is that on the day the Titanic sank, Rose happened to be in the ovulatory phase. The ovulatory phase is the few days in a menstrual cycle when a woman is most likely to become pregnant. If Rose happened to be ovulating on the day the ship sank, then she would have been very likely to conceive Jack’s child.
So how can I infer that Rose happened to be in the ovulatory phase on the day the ship sank? Because women are most likely to fall in love with male artists during the ovulatory phase. If Rose hadn’t been in the ovulatory phase, she might never have fallen at first sight for a poor artist like Jack.
This conclusion comes from a study by evolutionary psychologists Martie Haselton and Geoffrey Miller. These two scientists recruited 41 women as participants, all between the ages of 20 and 30. The researchers first recorded data on the timing of the women’s menstrual cycles, then showed them profiles of two men.
Most of the information about the two men was identical. They differed significantly only in “wealth” and “creative intelligence.” One was highly creative but not very wealthy—more or less the image of a “poor artist,” corresponding perfectly to Jack in Titanic. The other man had very ordinary creative intelligence but was wealthy—more or less the image of a “wealthy philistine,” corresponding perfectly to Rose’s nouveau riche fiancé in Titanic.
After reading the two profiles, the women first rated their liking for each man on a scale from 1 to 9, and then answered this question: “Which of these two men do you think would be more attractive for a short-term sexual relationship?” (Pay attention: a short-term sexual relationship, the kind of brief fling also known as an ONS.)
The results were as follows:
The women’s liking for the “poor artist” was highly correlated with their biological cycles. When the women were in the ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle—that is, the days when they were most likely to conceive—their liking for the “poor artist” rose to its highest level. In other words, the appeal of a poor artist like Jack, in women’s eyes, fluctuated with their biological cycles. Normally, nothing special; during the ovulatory phase, his appeal shot through the roof.
On the other hand, the women’s liking for the “wealthy philistine” was completely unaffected by their biological cycles. In other words, the appeal of a nouveau riche like Rose’s fiancé was constant in women’s eyes: either he was always nothing special, or he was always irresistibly appealing.
The pattern was much the same when the women were asked whether they wanted to have a short-term sexual relationship with the man. If they had to choose one man for sex, 92% of the women in the ovulatory phase chose the “poor artist” rather than the “wealthy philistine”; outside the ovulatory phase, only 55% chose the “poor artist.”
The apparent conclusion of this study is that when women are at the peak of fertility in their biological cycle, male artists are the ones they favor most.
So what does this pattern mean?
Creative intelligence is a form of “intrinsic endowment”
In his book Elastic, science writer Leonard Mlodinow points out that during the ovulatory phase—the peak-fertility stage—women seem to place greater importance on men’s intrinsic endowment. Intrinsic endowment refers to indicators that directly reflect survival ability, such as whether someone is healthy, strong, or handsome. Outside the peak-fertility stage, the weight of extrinsic endowment increases. Extrinsic endowment refers to indicators that reflect survival ability only indirectly, by taking a more roundabout route, such as wealth and status.
Creative intelligence is actually a trait that can reflect a man’s intrinsic endowment relatively directly. Leonard Mlodinow says that creative intelligence really reflects a person’s ability to think flexibly in response to change. Artistic creation involves a great deal of thinking outside the usual rules, which puts one’s mental flexibility to the test—and this ability to think flexibly is clearly an intrinsic endowment highly beneficial to survival. So when women are in the ovulatory phase, the weight of this endowment becomes more prominent.
Now we understand that the appeal of a poor male artist like Jack has the greatest chance of reaching its peak when a woman is in the ovulatory phase. So, in the eyes of this utterly unromantic psychology person, the passionate love story between a wealthy young lady and a poor artist in Titanic is truly plausible only under one condition: when the two met, Rose happened to be in the ovulatory phase when she could conceive.
So, with extremely high probability, the two of them created a child that day.
I’m Zhichao Wei. If you enjoy my show, please follow, like, save, and comment. I’ll keep updating this channel with all kinds of serious and unserious psychology knowledge. See you next time.
Further Discussion and Supplementary Material
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“Poor Artist vs. Wealthy Philistine” Study
Haselton, M. G., & Miller, G. F. (2006). Women’s fertility across the cycle increases the short-term attractiveness of creative intelligence. Human Nature, 17(1), 50-73.
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