Cambridge Journal of Human Behaviour - Articles
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Publication Open Access Divide and Conquer: Mind–Body Dualisms in Language and Body Image among Transmasculine Young Adults in Urban Finland(2022-10-04) Franklin, Tarina ZoeContemporary discussion in urban Finland surrounding transgender activism, healthcare, and politics is characterised by a series of tensions which, I argue, exist not only between institutions and people but also within the imaginaries of individuals. My argument is based on an ethnographic examination of the way in which Finnish linguistic particularities in relation to the concept of sex/gender result in a set of dualistic understandings of the relationship between mind and body, with specific reference to transmasculine identity, transition, and detransition. Essential to these dualisms in the context of Finnish transmasculinity is the desire to hormonally or surgically modify one’s physique, which I present as contingent upon language and life histories. Despite drawing from and building upon anthropological works on “embodiment”, which offer a constructionist approach to sensations often interpreted in medical contexts as innate, I contest the view of biological sex as a naturalised social construct alongside highlighting the limitations of analyses that assume bodies and minds to be separable from one another.Publication Open Access “It’s Easier to Kill a Guerilla in the Womb than in the Mountains”: Examining 1970s Science for the People Articles about Population Control(2022-10-04) Siddall, RebeccaMembers of the 1970s social justice movement Science for the People (SftP) expressed a moral obligation to use their own status and privilege, both as members of the scientific community and as US citizens, to advocate for poorer women of colour targeted by coercive population control initiatives. They felt a social responsibility to raise awareness of the human impact of their government’s development initiatives within an imperialist context. In addition, SftP examined the US feminist movement’s historical complicity in population control, identifying the shortcomings of their own movement. Publications in the SftP magazine allowed members to share these perspectives with the public, inviting debate and pushing for direct action. In doing so, their analysis reflects the beginnings of what we now term “intersectionality’”(Crenshaw, 1989)—recognising and labelling the power imbalances associated with different social identities.Publication Open Access Credo, Cognition, and Culture: An Anthropology of Religion(2022-10-04) Chidichimo, EdoardoReligion seems to be universal to all human societies (D. E. Brown, 1991). Recent evidence and hypotheses from evolutionary psychology have preferred a gene-culture coevolution approach in understanding modern human sociality and cognition. Such evolutions, in turn, are argued to have provided the foundations for large-scale cooperation and phenomena such as institutionalised, prosocial religions and religiosity generally, particularly since the advent of agriculture around 12,000 years ago (i.e., the Holocene; Matthews, 2012). This article aims to provide a full anthropological account of religion by equally involving a socio-cultural and ethnographic inquiry and insight into such cognitive manifestations of credence (i.e., beliefs and practices), whilst paying sensitive attention to methodological approaches within the social sciences. By providing these two lenses, this article addresses religion anthropologically in the broadest way, presenting one proposed genesis of religion and the multiple lived realities and experiences of religion.Publication Open Access On the Proximate and Ultimate Explanations of Sex Differences in Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders(2022-10-04) Majorova, SylvieDuring their lifetime, women are twice as likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder compared to men (Baxter et al., 2013). However, studies investigating the mechanisms underlying these sex differences often focus on different levels of analysis, making it more difficult to incorporate findings from these different studies. This article synthesises and reviews a selection of these analyses to provide a better-integrated representation of the mechanisms underlying sex differences. It uses the framework of four questions developed by Tinbergen in 1963, disentangling the potential proximate and ultimate mechanisms involved. This article describes the evidence for different explanations, with a particular focus on testosterone, which is presented as a possible link between different correlates of anxiety. Analysis of ultimate mechanisms include the evaluation of the optimality approach of behavioural ecology as well as the approach of evolutionary psychology. The signal detection theory suggests that some sex differences in anxiety may be adaptive, whereas the theories of evolutionary psychology suggest a mismatch between current and past environments in our species history. Overall, it is not supported that there would be a single explanation at any level of analysis.Publication Open Access Developmental Course of Peer Problems and Co-occurring Behavioural Problems During Childhood and Adolescence (Age 5–17)(2022-10-04) Lee, Chi Ying JasminePurpose: Peer relationships are crucial to psychosocial development, and peer difficulties in childhood predict behavioural difficulties later in life. Yet, there is a lack of literature on the developmental trajectory of peer problems. I aim to identify common peer problem profiles and map their longitudinal transitions across childhood and adolescence. Method: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire data from the population-representative Millennial Cohort Study was analysed with factor analysis, followed by a data-driven clustering approach to extract subgroups of peer and co-occurring problems from ages 5 to 17. I then mapped the transitions between profiles and identified risk factors predicting significant transitions. Results: Peer problems often co-occurred with other behavioural problems. As children developed from 5 to 7, the peer problem clusters gradually became broader, encompassing emotional difficulties and hyperactivity. From 7 to 11 the profile became refined, returning to mainly peer problems; then from 11 to 14 the peer problem phenotype expanded again to include emotion and hyperactivity issues. Longitudinal and concurrent risk factors at ages 5, 7, and 11 were identified to predict these negative transitions. Conclusion: Peer problems show a non-linear trajectory of change when tracked longitudinally through childhood and adolescence. Whilst they generally increase with time, they are associated with different co-occurring difficulties and form complex profiles throughout development. These transitions are, to some extent, predictable on the basis of risk factors such as child longstanding illness, time spent on sports and exercise, and parental mental health.Publication Open Access Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination: How We Can Use Psychology to Reduce Discrimination(2022-10-04) Anoble, MelissaThis paper aims to illustrate the origins of prejudice, its relationship to stereotypes, and how it can lead to discrimination. I will also outline potential solutions to reducing prejudice and discrimination. Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are terms that we often use interchangeably, yet they are three conceptually distinct concepts that often overlap. A stereotype can be defined as an over-generalisation of a specific category or group of people based on observations of characteristics from a smaller sample. Stereotypes can be defined as cognitive biases, where we make generalisations about a group of people based on the characteristics of a smaller sample, hence any variation among individuals is ignored. Prejudice, on the other hand, refers to an affective bias where one holds a positive or negative attitude towards someone because of their membership in a particular group. Discrimination can often be a consequence of prejudice and is characterised as the aversive behaviours one expresses towards an individual or group because of their group membership. Implicit biases are arguably dangerous as they can affect our behaviour towards social groups and reproduce unequal treatment of individuals in society. Prejudice and discrimination are pervasive in society and understanding their causes can help us find ways to eradicate them.Publication Open Access Empathy Differences: A New Description of Autism and Borderline Personality Disorder(2022-10-04) Chitwa, EliaBorderline Personality Disorder is a personality disorder characterised by impulsivity, as well as instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affect. Although not explicitly mentioned in the diagnostic criteria, empathy seems to play a role in the symptomatology of the disorder. The “borderline empathy paradox” (Dinsdale & Crespi, 2013) is one description of empathy in individuals with borderline personality disorder and is the idea that these individuals are extremely sensitive to other people’s mental and emotional states but are not able to use this to form stable concepts of self and other. Furthermore, this enhanced sensitivity could cause misinterpretations of social cues which lead to emotional instability and interpersonal distress, two of the main challenges faced by those with the disorder. Research on empathy in borderline personality has found variable results and the present article reviews these findings, specifically in the context of differences in and dissociations between affective and cognitive empathy. This article will also review this alongside the findings around empathy in autism spectrum disorders, which is a disorder that has been described as having deficits in empathy at its core, and research on the overlaps in the two conditions. Finally, this paper proposes a new diagnostic criteria that centres empathy to account for the importance of empathy in both conditions. The limitations of the findings are considered, as well as possible explanations for the variability in findings, such as the use of self-report measures, differences in what tasks are measuring, and heterogeneity of the samples. In addition, the clinical implications for the findings are considered and other future directions for research are suggested.