Sexual Preference: Its Development in Men and Women is a 1981 book about the development of sexual orientation by psychologist Alan P. Bell and sociologists Martin S. Weinberg and Sue Kiefer Hammersmith, in which Bell et al. reevaluate what were then widely held ideas about the origins of heterosexuality and homosexuality, sometimes rejecting entirely the factors proposed as causes, and in other cases concluding that their importance had been exaggerated. Produced with the help of the American National Institute of Mental Health, the study was a publication of the Institute for Sex Research. Together with its separately published Statistical Appendix, Sexual Preference was culmination of a series of books including Homosexuality: An Annotated Bibliography (1972) and Homosexualities: A Stud