Multiple factors determine handedness including genetics, prenatal stress and post-natal environmental conditions. Atypical handedness, whether manifest as increased sinistrality or decreased strength of lateral preference, has been noted in a wide variety of populations with neuropathology. Those with atypical sexual preferences, specifically paedophilia, also manifest reduced rates of right-h...

OTWITHSTANDING their morphological similarity, Drosophila pseudoN obscura and Drosophila persimilis are distinct species. No hybrids between them have been recorded in natural populations, although the two species frequently occur together in the same habitats. Although in laboratory experiments species hybrids may be obtained without much difficulty, intraspecific matings succeed more easily t...

Title of Document: PATTERNS OF SONG AND PREFERENCE VARIATION IN LAUPALA CERASINA AND THEIR EVOLUTIONARY IMPLICATIONS Jaime Leigh Grace, Ph.D., 2010 Directed By: Professor Kerry L. Shaw, Department of Biology Closely related species often differ conspicuously in secondary sexual characters, many of which may be shaped by sexual selection. Changes in these characters may directly influence specia...

Reflective opposite sex norms are behavior that an individual believes the opposite sex prefers them to do. The current study extends research on this recently introduced construct by examining estimates and influences of reflective norms on drinking in a large high-risk heterosexual sample of male and female college students from two universities. Both gender and Greek-affiliation served as po...

Theory on the evolution of ornamental male traits by sexual selection assumes consistency in selection over time. Temporal variation in female choice could dampen sexual selection, but scant information exists on the degree to which individual female preferences are flexible. Here we show that in lark buntings sexual selection on male traits varied dramatically across years and, in some cases, ...

Using in-depth interviews with 43 college women who were, on average, 21 years old (SD = 0.79), the authors explored women's attitudes toward and experiences of cunnilingus. The authors found that cunnilingus posed interactional challenges for women, but that these varied by relationship context. Drawing on scripting theory, the authors argue that the sexual scripts available to contemporary Am...

According to the dual mating hypothesis, women possess two overlapping suites of mate-choice mechanisms: one leading to preferences for sexually desirable men who have high-fitness genes and one leading to preferences for men who are able to invest in a woman and her children. Evidence increasingly demonstrates that women's preference for sexual desirability (but not investment attractiveness) ...

Theory predicts that sexual selection can promote the evolution of reproductive isolation and speciation. Those cases in which sexual selection has led to speciation should be characterized by significant differentiation in male display traits and correlated female preferences in the absence of post-zygotic isolation, accompanied by little genetic or other morphological differentiation. Previou...

The spectacular diversity in sexually selected traits among animal taxa has inspired the hypothesis that divergent sexual selection can drive speciation. Unfortunately, speciation biologists often consider sexual selection in isolation from natural selection, even though sexually selected traits evolve in an ecological context: both preferences and traits are often subject to natural selection....

Many observers believe that wealthy men play a disproportionate role in the continuing spread of HIV/AIDS infection in sub-Saharan Africa through their involvement in informal exchange relationships, where money and gifts (referred to as "transfers") are given to a range of nonmarital sexual partners. In this case, wealthier men are riskier sexual partners because they can afford to give larger...