This study sought to conduct an in depth analysis of women’s first sexual experiences looking for factors contributing to the experience and the emotional outcomes of first intercourse. Fourteen heterosexual, female, college students were interviewed about their first sexual experience and sexual background using a semi-structured interview format. The narratives...
Animal signaling systems frequently utilize multiple traits to produce and transmit a signal. These system elements may span multiple levels of organization. Functional integration of these traits may be expected to generate concordance in evolutionary pattern among system elements, such that evolutionary change in one system component is correlated with...
An ancient pheromonal signal is found in aquatic courting salamandrids and terrestrial courting plethodontids, two highly divergent salamander families. In the aquatic courting salamandrids Cynops pyrrhogaster and C. ensicauda, the decapeptide sodefrin is cleaved from a larger 189 amino acid Sodefrin Precursor Factor (SPF) protein and released from a gland...
Women living in sub-Saharan Africa are more affected by HIV/AIDS than any other population in the world. Two-thirds of all new HIV infections worldwide occur in sub-Saharan Africa and over 60% of these infections are in women. Indeed, 70% of
all women globally who are infected with HIV reside in...
Suicide is the primary cause of death of adolescents in Ireland. While much attention has been given this phenomenon, no research has specifically examined the role of guidance counsellors in secondary schools in Ireland in addressing this phenomenon. The purpose of this research was to examine the self-efficacy of guidance...
Stressful events of both major and minor magnitude in
the lives of children and adolescents are significantly
related to emotional and behavioral problems (Compas, 1987a;
Johnson, 1986). It is also apparent, however, that this
relationship is complicated and that individuals vary greatly
in their responses to stress. The purpose of...
The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between religiosity and sexual behavior of college students by using a measure of religious orientation to define religiosity. Religious orientation refers to individuals' motivations for religious involvement and personal faith. Religious orientations are characterized as being extrinsic, intrinsic, indiscriminately proreligious...
This thesis describes studies that investigated 1)
the effects of courtship on the neuroendocrine system of
female rough-skinned newts, Taricha granulosa, and 2)
whether the observed courtship-induced neuroendocrine
changes affected female sexual receptivity.
Sexual behaviors of female T. granulosa changed
dramatically during courtship. Initially, females
exhibited unreceptive behaviors to a...
Approximately half of the 6.4 million pregnancies occurring each year in the
United States are unintended (Finer & Henshaw, 2006). Unintended pregnancies, defined
as pregnancies not wanted at the time conception occurs, regardless of contraceptive use
(Chandra, Martinez, Mosher, Abma, & Jones, 2005) can have serious repercussions on
women, children,...
Chemoreception is one of the dominant sensory modalities for many species of salamanders (reviewed in Chapter 2). At least seven of the ten currently recognized salamander families are known to respond to some sort of chemical cue. These responses are as varied as delaying hatching, seeking refuge, or initiating aggressive...