The Coolidge Effect

628 Words2 Pages

This is a phenomenon described by scientists as the automatic response to novel mates. It earned its name many years ago when President Coolidge and his wife were out and about touring a farm, and they came across a farmer who proudly showed Mrs. Coolidge a rooster that he said could copulate with hens all day long, day after day without tiring. This effect was proven by putting a male rat in a cage with a receptive female rat. Initially, there was a frenzy of copulation. Then, progressively the male would tire of that particular female, even without her receptivity changing. The male rat would eventually ignore the female rat. When the female was replaced with a new one, the male rat immediately revived and started copulating again. This process was repeated until the male rat nearly died of exhaustion. The rat’s vigor comes from surges of a neurochemical called dopamine. Dopamine was behind the phenomenon of the rat’s mating fatigue. As the rat copulates repeatedly with the same old partner, the amount of dopamine released reduces in the reward circuitry of its brain. But when ...

Open Document