A peculiar evolutionary response occurs after competitors engage in a struggle. According to a new study in Evolution and Human Behavior, the winners experience an increase in testosterone levels, which in turn creates a strong urge to spread one's seed. Losers, on the other hand, experience a decrease in testosterone levels, diminishing their sexual appetite.

What does this mean for victorious Republicans during this week's elections? Marina Adshade at Big Think extrapolates from the study:

Evolutionarily, in response to winning a competition testosterone increases in a way that encourages reproductive behaviour, including wanting a variety of sexual partners.  Not everyone can run around inseminating all the maidens in the village though, and in this modern era viewing online pornography is one way that this impulse can express itself... This isn’t just true for the participants in competitions, but for spectators as well.

..So if elections leave some voters feeling victorious, then we would expect to see this behavior dominate in regions where the majority were rooting for the winning side. According to this research, that is exactly what we have seen in the past three major elections in the U.S. In the week following the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Google searches for pornography increased above the average for the year in red states and fell in blue states. After the midterm elections in 2006, when the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Google search terms for porn increased in blue states—and fell (rather dramatically) in red states. And in the week following the 2008 presidential election, porn searches were up again in the blue states and down again in the red states.

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John Hudson