Hormonal Organization of Sex Differences in Play Fighting and Spatial Behavior

Abstract

Publisher Summary Sex differences are known to exist in a variety of nonreproductive behaviors in mammals, such as activity, reactions to various stimuli, certain components of the play behavior of juveniles, aggression, feeding and body weight regulation as well as the learning of certain avoidance and maze problems. This chapter describes the effects of gonadal hormones on sex differences in play and spatial behavior. Play fighting is sexually dimorphic in a number of diverse species including humans, several species of great apes and old world monkeys as well as in ungulates, pinnipeds, and rodents. While there is currently no evidence that decisively indicates that gonadal hormones play an important role in sex-related differences in human spatial behavior, new findings support the hypothesis that perinatal exposure to androgens may be a factor. Most of the human studies necessarily employ patients with endocrine anomalies and, consequently, the samples are usually small. Because the magnitude of the sex difference is not very great, careful attention to task and age variables is important, but larger samples may also be required to detect whatever hormonal influences exist. Clearly additional research with adult humans in spatial tasks that more closely resemble those employed with animals would be helpful in assessing the validity of animal models of sex differences.