sneak mating

a practice in which male animals that do not form or defend territories or nest sites or do not vocalize or give displays to attract mates intercept females and mate with them before the females reach the larger, more dominant territorial or displaying males. Sneak mating has a low success rate, but it is frequently the only reproductive strategy available to smaller, subordinate males.

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Psychology term of the day

November 18th 2024

psychometric scaling

the creation of an instrument to measure a psychological concept through a process of analyzing responses to a set of test items or other stimuli. It involves identifying item properties, noting whether responses match theoretical formats, reducing the larger set of items into a smaller number (e.g., through exploratory factor analysis), and determining appropriate scoring methods.