Intersting Facts from Psychology

So the last blog post was a little too rough. Talking about depression doesn’t exactly lift spirits. So I tough this time I’d talk about the two most interesting things I learned in my biological psychology class. This was the first class I ever took at the UW and was an absolute blast. Anyway these are the two things that really stuck out in my mind just because I thought they were so interesting. It just so happens that these two things center around sex which I don’t think says anything about me and my memory but it might.

The male preying mantis is a lot smaller then the female preying mantis so when it comes time to mate the male is scared to death thinking that the female will literally kill him. But, like all males of every species, the need for sex outweighs the need to survive. So he’ll wait around until the female looks like she’s busy then he’ll pounce. While he’s trying to have sex he is still scared that he is going to die which causes him to have issues performing. But he still really wants to mate so, even though he can’t perform, he keeps trying anyway. The female eventually sees him and decapitates him. Really, she rips off his head and then starts to eat it. Now, headless, the male’s body, which is still having sex with the female even without his head, is able to perform because, without the head, he is no longer capable of being anxious and scared. After the headless body is done the female eats it too.

Male rats are always ready for sex, kind of like human men, but female rats need the mood right, like human women. So my professor, back when he was a grad student, had to set the mood right in order for the action to happen and his experiment to occur. So he used to dim the lights and play Queen. He had a particular song he played and I wish I remember what it was but I don’t. Anyway with the mood just right the female will arch her back, move her tail to the side, and the male will go to town. About three thrusts later he’s done and exhausted (poor guy). He’s almost paralyzed he’s so tired. Since the female doesn’t get that tired she has plenty of energy to hang around the male. The male will release a ‘dog-whistle’ type of noise that basically tells the female “leave me alone I’m tired.” But if you place another female rat, who is already ready for sex, in the cage with that male no matter how tired he is he’ll have sex with her too. He could be knocking on heaven’s door due to exhaustion and he’ll still have sex again. This is called the Coolidge Effect, named after the president. The reason why it’s named after him is that at one point during his presidency he and his wife visited a chicken farm. At the farm the farmer mentioned to the wife that his rooster will have sex upwards to a thousand times a day. She asked the farmer to tell her husband that. Hearing this Coolidge asked the farmer if the rooster had sex with that same hen a thousand times a day. The farmer said no. Coolidge asked him to tell his wife that.