Sexual selection

Sexual selection

In Darwin's theory of evolution, this is the term for the female animal's choice of partner(s) from a large group of potential mates, based on the sexual characteristics of the males — longest tail, brightest color, most antlers, etc. According to Darwin, sex characteristics that inspire sexual selection, like the peacock's tail, evolve even though they may diminish an individual's chances of survival.

This is auto-generated content. You can help to improve it.

0 0

Improve it

Add an image

Part of Speech: noun
Synonym(s):
Blossary:
Industry/Domain: Health care
Category: Sexual health
Company:
Product:
Acronym-Abbreviation:

Collect to Blossary

Other Languages:

Related terms

sexual selection

Archaeology; Evolution

A selection on mating behavior, either through competition among members of one sex (usually males) for access to members of the other sex or through choice by members of one sex ...

sexual selection

Health care; Sexual health

In Darwin’s theory of evolution, this is the term for the female animal’s choice of partner(s) from a large group of potential mates, based on the sexual characteristics of the ...

sexual selection

Archaeology; Human evolution

The increased reproductive success of males or females because of characters that enhance either their ability to compete with members of the same sex or their attractiveness to ...

sexual selection

Biology; Ecology

A form of natural selection in which characteristics (e.g., bright plumage, deeper voices) preferred by female mates are passed down to later generations.

sexual selection

Zoology; Zoological terms

A type of natural selection affecting traits that influence an individual's ability to attain or choose a mate, rahter than traits that influence an individual's ability to ...

sexual selection

Biology; Biochemistry; Molecular biology

The forces determined by mate choice acting to cause one genotype to mate more frequently than another genotype.

Sigmund Freud

Health care; Sexual health

(1856–1939) Influential psychoanalyst who believed that we must understand human sexuality if we are to understand human nature. He understood that children have strong sexual ...

Havelock Ellis

Health care; Sexual health

(1859–1939) English author of Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1903–28). Until 1935, Ellis’s Studies, which argued that erotic dreams, foreplay, and masturbation were normal, ...

Katharine Bement Davis

Health care; Sexual health

(1860–1945) Completed the first major study on women’s sexuality, Factors in the Sex Lives of Twenty-Two Hundred Women, which was published in 1929. She gathered data for more ...

Magnus Hirschfeld

Health care; Sexual health

(1868–1935) German sexologist who founded the Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin in 1919. He studied human sexuality in order to provide counseling for sexual problems. He ...

Marie Carmichael Stopes

Health care; Sexual health

(1880–1958) Opened the first British birth control clinic in 1921. One of her books, Married Love, was declared obscene by the U. S. Customs in 1921 because it described the ...

Margaret Sanger

Health care; Sexual health

(1883–1966) Founder of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Margaret Sanger began her career as a nurse who fought to legalize birth control in order to prevent women from ...