Relevant Terms

Question 1

Richard Dawkin’s “selfish gene”

Answer 1

genes can enhance themselves at the expense of other genes even if it is no effect on organismal fitness

Question 2

sexual selection

Answer 2

evolutionary changes that increase mating success but pose no survival purpose
e.g. peacocks colourful and large tails

intersexual (attracts mates) or intrasexual (intimidates rivals)

Question 3

natural selection

Answer 3

favourable behaviours are selected for the advantage of the general species survival

Question 4

monogamy

Answer 4

one committed mating partner

Question 5

polygamy

Answer 5

many mating partners

Question 6

polyandry

Answer 6

one female, more than one male
(less frequent across all species)
- most often occurs when males outnumber females and males are generally related (increase odds of their genes passing on)

Question 7

polygyny

Answer 7

one male, more than one female

Question 8

sexual strategies theory (buss & schmitt)

Answer 8

the sex differences in mating strategy stem from a pursuit of what is most beneficial to their goal of increase reproductive success/output
- among males this is relied upon by increasing copulation partners (quantity)
- females can only copulate a certain amount before they become pregnant meaning they look for different qualities for reproductive fitness (quality)

Question 9

sperm competition

Answer 9

arises when the ejaculate of two or more males compete to fertilise the same egg

Question 10

sperm cooperation

Answer 10

sperm form motile swimming groups from the viscosity in the female tract

Question 11

non-associative learning

Answer 11

change following repeated exposures to a stimulus, learns familiarity

Question 12

associative learning

Answer 12

change after learning that two things go together

Question 13

habituation

Answer 13

type of non-associative learning - when there’s a decrease in response frequency as a consequence of repeated experience with a stimulus

Question 14

The Coolidge Effect

Answer 14

biological phenomenon seen in animals, whereby males have the tendency to be less sexually aroused by a female that they have had sex with in the past
- lesser extent familiar with females and occurs in humans
- measured by the frequency of sexual encounters, which lowers over time

Question 15

Pavlovian Conditioning

Answer 15

a type of associative learning, when change occurs because they learn that one stimulus predicts another stimulus

Question 16

heterozygous

Answer 16

bearing different alleles

Question 17

homozygous

Answer 17

carrying two identical alleles

Question 18

sexual dimorphism

Answer 18

differences between males and females beyond sexual organs

Question 19

Conditioning of Sexual Excitement Akins (1998)

Answer 19

• One side had qualities that were appealing
• The other side had qualities that were unappealing
• If you let the male choose which side to be, they would spend most of their time on the nice side
• After the male makes the association between the unappealing side and sex, you can see a change in behaviour as he spends more time in that side
• Having just one instance of pairing the bad side and sex didn’t really do much but after just 2 pairings, paired males are spending 80% of their time there

Question 20

Penis as a form of Intersexual Sexual Selection

Answer 20

• signal of good health, more pleasure
• more preference for larger in short-term partners

Question 21

Female Choice on Monkey Penis Size

Answer 21

• when females have more choice the males are slightly larger
• they differ in morphology and became more intricate with more female choice