Coolidge effect - in biology and psychology, the term describes a phenomenon in which males exhibit prolonged high sexual activity in relation to each new female ready for fertilization. The effect is observed in almost all animal species studied in this regard [1] [2] .
Content
The origin of the term
The term goes back to the next joke [3] .
US President Calvin Coolidge and his wife visited a poultry farm. During the visit, Mrs. Coolidge asked the farmer how the farm manages to produce so many eggs with so few roosters. The farmer proudly explained that his cocks do their duties dozens of times a day.
“Perhaps you should tell Mr. Coolidge about this,” the first lady remarked wittily. The President, upon hearing the remark, asked the farmer:
“Does each rooster serve the same chicken each time?”
“No,” said the farmer, “there are many hens for every rooster.”
“Perhaps you should tell Mrs. Coolidge about this,” the president answered.
Empirical evidence
The original experiments with gray rats were carried out as follows [4] : the male rat was placed in a large closed box with four or five females during estrus . He immediately began to mate with all the rats again and again, until he was finally exhausted. Despite the fact that the females continued to shove and lick him to continue, he did not respond. Nevertheless, when a new female was placed in the box, he perked up and found the strength to mate one more time, with the new female. This phenomenon is observed not only in Rattus norvegicus [5] . The Coolidge effect is attributed to an increase in dopamine levels and its subsequent effect on the limbic system [6] .
The Coolidge effect is usually demonstrated in males, since males show the resumption of arousal with a new female. Lester and Horzalka developed a model to detect the Coolidge effect in females. Their experiment, using hamsters instead of rats, found that this effect is also present, but to a lesser extent, in females [7] [8] .
Notes
- ↑ Reber AS , Reber ES The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology / Arthur S. Reber, Emily Sarah Reber. - 3rd ed. - London : Penguin Books Ltd , 2001 . - P. 880. - ISBN 0-14-051451-1 , ISBN 9780140514513 .
- ↑ Brown RE Sexual arousal, the Coolidge effect and dominance in the rat ( Rattus norvegicus ) // Animal Behavior. - 1974. - No. 22. - P. 634-637. ( doi : 10.1016 / S0003-3472 (74) 80009-6 )
- ↑ Dewsbury DA, Frank A. Beach, Master Teacher // Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology. - 2000. - Vol. 4. - P. 269—281.
- ↑ Beach FA, Jordan L. Sexual Exhaustion and Recovery in the Male Rat // Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. - 1956. - No. 8. - P. 121-133.
- ↑ Wilson J., Kuehn R., Beach FA Modifications in the Sexual Behavior of Male Rats Produced by Changing the Stimulus Female // Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology. - 1963. - P. 636-644.
- ↑ Fiorino DF, Coury A., Phillips AG Dynamic changes in nucleus accumbens dopamine efflux during the Coolidge effect in male rats // en: The Journal of Neuroscience . - 1997. - June.
- ↑ Effect of novel and familiar mating partners on the duration of sexual receptivity in the female hamster // Behavioral Neural Biology. - 1988. - No. 49 (3) (May). - P. 398-405.
- ↑ Pinel J. Biopsychology / John Pinel. - 6th ed.
See also
- Polygyny