ABSTRACT
Reproductive mechanisms have so fixed and unvarying an influence upon the social life of the lower mammal, that the mutual reactions of the individuals in one breeding group are usually a counterpart of the social behaviour exhibited in another. The stable character of the groups reflects stereotyped social responses which are largely unlearned. The evidence shows that in a mammal such as the laboratory rat, sexual reactions are compounded of a series of innate or “unconditioned” responses.* They are a manifestation of its growth, and not of its learning. However, it is unlikely that sexual responses would remain altogether unconditioned in circumstances different from those of the laboratory. Moss has shown that a potent male rat will not cross a mildly electrified grid to reach an œstrous female, and her normal approach to the male may be similarly inhibited.267 His experiments have been confirmed by Louttit, who, by simultaneously administering electric shocks every time male and female guinea-pigs touched each other, effectively modified the animals’ normal social reactions. As he suggests, “contact behaviour can be entirely suppressed if the conditioning is continued long enough.”238
