THE ROLE OF REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES IN ACADEMIC ATTAINMENT

Since there is a tradeoff between prolonged formal education and early reproduction, education can be construed as a long-term reproductive tactic. This reproductive strategies approach was tested by looking at relationships between sociosexuality (SOI) and parental investment (p arental income, number of siblings, parental divorce, number of step s iblings, birth intervals, birth order closeness to parents) and GPA of 139 White students at a private college. Parental investment was redu ced to three factors (Family Composition, Family Security, and Marital Instability), the last of which was negatively correlated with GPA an d positively correlated with SOI. SOI was a much stronger (negative) p redictor of GPA in women, but not men, than ACT was. Results support t he reproductive strategies approach and imply that prediction of acade mic difficulty (and gender differences therein) must confront reproduc tive issues.