For some Bearcats, “hooking-up” is a weekly State Street activity — but for a team of professors and undergraduate students at Binghamton University, the phrase itself is the focus of research that seeks to define the abstract and awkward concept, and to determine what contributes to variations in students’ personal definitions.

The study is divided up into two parts — that of psychology and human development Professor Ann Merriwether’s work and a second component headed by senior Justin Garcia. This specific study is Garcia’s honors project and aims to take a better look at behavior-genetics issues pertaining to the “hook-up.”

Merriwether, who started her research while teaching at the University of Michigan, is surveying BU students. The goal of her portion of the project is to understand the kinds of ways students define hook-ups.

Garcia has been working since fall of 2005 in an effort to determine the biological and neural components of the “hook-up” by compiling data. The data collected will be used to specify whether or not there’s a general relationship between sexual risk-taking and a dopamine affecting gene.

A large portion of Garcia’s studies focuses on dopamine, a neurotransmitter of the brain responsible for a person’s pleasure level and often associated with the “fight or flight” reactions. Through a combination of surveys and DNA samples, Garcia has collected information which he hopes will help him determine whether variations of a certain gene will affect the way dopamine works in the brain and body.

According to Garcia, the research being conducted seeks to find a genetic reasoning behind different kinds of sexual behavior. “That means that you’re going to expect different types of sexual risk-taking and novelty seeking, which is exactly what we see,” he said.

Garcia has collected data from a few hundred students so far, mostly from psychology courses, and looks to reach 500 by the end of this semester. Students who participate in the study fill out a survey with a specific identification number, which then matches the number of their DNA sample. (For a closer look at the survey, see the accompanying sidebar.)

While the main focus on the study is between biological influences and sexual behavior, Garcia also looks to define the “hook-up” and address certain issues that come along with it.

“One of the things we’re starting to see now is that you can use the terminology to your own benefit. So an individual can turn around and say ‘Yeah, I hooked up with him or her,’ and that can mean anything. That person can actually use that to their own advantage for reputation benefits.”

So what exactly is a hook-up? According to Garcia, it can range from oral sex to intercourse to just making out.

A large part of the study looks into the individual’s notions of a hook-up before, during and afterwards. One of the things Garcia has found thus far is females will tend to expect more from the hook-up afterwards, whereas males expect it to end there.

“In the evolutionary circle, the argument has always been that there’s mating strategies, and now it seems like that’s not true,” said Garcia. “We’re really on the forefront of coming up with a whole new framework for understanding sexual behavior and evolutionary history. It turns out hook-ups occur as a phenomena, not a strategy.”

On a larger scale, the study examines public health concerns. On that level Garcia hopes the study, once completed, will allow for some headway in terms of influencing public action on these issues.

“One of the things we definitely know is that ignoring these behaviors is really detrimental and dangerous when it comes to diseases, pregnancy rates, psychological trauma and incidents of sexual abuse,” he said.

Garcia’s portion of the project is funded through undergraduate research awards from Harpur College, as well as small grants. He is working with Professors David Sloan Wilson and J. Koji Lum and a group of undergraduates in an effort to gain a better understanding of sexual behavior.