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Promiscuity

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

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Definition

Indiscriminate mating with multiple partners

What Is Promiscuity?

Promiscuity means mating with multiple partners in an indiscriminate way, that is, without any selection-based process or quality-based discrimination of mating partners. Contrary to popular belief, promiscuity does not merely mean mating or engaging in sexual activities profusely with different partners. The misuse of the term “promiscuity” in behavioral sciences and evolutionary biology has been pointed out before (Elgar et al. 2013), and the improper use of the term extends to other areas including evolutionary psychology.

The “without choice” qualifier of the term is important because in spite of the fact that males and females mate with multiple partners in most sexually reproducing animal species, in the majority of these species sexual interactions are governed by mate selection criteria. Thus, applying the strict and correct definition of promiscuity would render very few animals promiscuous indeed....

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Doñana Biological Station, Spanish Research Council (CSIC), Sevilla, Spain

    Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez

  2. Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

    Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez

Authors
  1. Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez
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Correspondence to Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Averett University, Danville, VA, USA

    David Hanbury

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Garcia-Gonzalez, F. (2022). Promiscuity. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_423

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