Economic Booms and "Busts"

From the New York Post article by Jennifer Fermino:

Who needs Alan Greenspan when you've got Hugh Hefner?

An enterprising academic who took it upon himself to study 40 years of Playboy-magazine pictorials found that bigger, more robust bunnies signal a bad economy.

The bare-market lovelies tend to be older, heavier, taller and have an overall more grown-up look, according to the research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

That's because worried guys subconsciously look for "a more able woman to take care of them and other people," said Terry Pettijohn II, an assistant professor of psychology who conducted the study.

"When times are difficult, reproductive fitness may be less important and the ability to acquire resources and be productive may become more important," according to the study.