/* Template Name: Research Topics */ Etologie člověka

Partner selection

Throughout their life, people create their own partner preferences that can be influenced, for example, by their parents. One of the ways of influence is a so-called imprinting-like effect, when children learn the characteristics of their parents that they later prefer in their partners. Partner preferences however may not exactly match actual partner selection. It may, for instance, be because of the varied importance with which different characteristics play a role in choosing a partner, it is therefore not necessary for a potential partner to fulfill ideal ideas in all characteristics….(read more)

Family constellations

Family is the fundamental environment that creates and determines the psychical and physical qualities of an individual, both on a conscious and unconscious level. These influences then directly affect the individuals life and have an effect on human biology and ultimately on peoples entire lives. As a family (or sibling) constellation, we define the order of birth of an individual and the influence which ensues as a result from his or her surroundings. The general diversity of siblings who grew up together has been repeatedly scientifically documented and some authors even state that siblings are often so different in their personality characteristics as two randomly selected individuals in the population….(read more)

Attractiveness

Attractiveness has a strong influence on how we perceive others and how we interact. Attractive individuals enjoy certain social benefits and are more desirable partners, because from the evolutionary perspective, attractive traits are markers of individual´s quality and mating with them can increase reproductive success. Our team investigates various traits that can influence perception of attractiveness like bodily physical attractiveness (e.g., overall physique, symmetry, height, waist-to-hips ratio or hips-to-shoulders ratio) and facial attractiveness (facial symmetry, proportionality, neoteny, averageness, beardedness, masculinity-femininity and facial redness and colour contrast)….(read more)

Competition

Social interactions may sometimes collide and result in conflicts which can be solved among others by means of physical violence. However, physical confrontations entail a risk of injuries and other fitness-affecting consequences. Thus, it seems likely that cognitive and behavioural processes to assess the fighting ability may have evolved by means of natural selection. This would facilitate adaptive decisions and responses to decrease costs and increase benefits from potential confrontations. When an individual encounter a potential antagonist, the first step in such decision-making process might depend predominantly on the overall size of the opponent….(read more)

Chemical communication

Chemical communication is involved in social interactions in various contexts such as mate choice, mother-infant relationship and other kin relations. Each individual has specific odour signature originating from interaction between secretion of sebaceous, apocrine and eccrine glands and metabolic activity of skin microflora. Odour signature is influenced by ones genetic makeup and environmental factors such as diet, diseases or reproductive status. Our group studies how environmental (diet), contextual (affective states), genetic make-up (MHC) and cultural practices (perfumes) affect human body odour and its perception using perspectives of sexual selection,…(read more)

Olfactory perception and cognition

Our work focuses primarily on interindividual differences in olfactory perception and identification of factors contributing to variability in olfaction. Studies conducted so far show that the variability is not connected to sex differences only, but can be observed within sexes for instance due to sex (a)typicality (i. e., gender nonconformity). We revealed that interindividual differences are linked to personal characteristics (neuroticism in particular) as well or intraindividual changes in olfactory abilities were shown to be connected to menstrual cycle phase in women with higher sensitivity during fertile phase….(read more)