The onset of cravings for items not typically desired is often considered a hallmark of pregnancy. Given the ubiquity of cravings, this phenomenon remains surprisingly understudied. The current study ...tested four hypotheses of pregnancy food cravings: behavioural immune system, nutrient seeking, resource scarcity and social bargaining. The research took place in Tamil Nadu, South India, with pregnant women residing in rural villages (N = 94). Methods included structured interviews and anthropometric measures. Findings revealed that unripe mango and unripe tamarind were the two most frequently mentioned food cravings among this population, but were not sufficiently supported by the a priori models. Results confirmed that the social bargaining model was the best explanation for the etic category of toxic/pathogenic food items, suggesting that pregnant women crave dangerous foods when experiencing heightened social pressures. Finally, toxicity/pathogenicity was a confounding factor for the nutrient seeking and resource scarcity models, calling into question the validity of these models in adverse environments. Overall, these findings present important implications for research on pregnancy food cravings, such that in resource-scarce and pathogen-dense environments, cravings might target teratogenic items that signal a need for increased social support.
The emergence of large-scale cooperation during the Holocene remains a central problem in the evolutionary literature. One hypothesis points to culturally evolved beliefs in punishing, ...interventionist gods that facilitate the extension of cooperative behaviour toward geographically distant co-religionists. Furthermore, another hypothesis points to such mechanisms being constrained to the religious ingroup, possibly at the expense of religious outgroups. To test these hypotheses, we administered two behavioural experiments and a set of interviews to a sample of 2228 participants from 15 diverse populations. These populations included foragers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, and wage labourers, practicing Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism, but also forms of animism and ancestor worship. Using the Random Allocation Game (RAG) and the Dictator Game (DG) in which individuals allocated money between themselves, local and geographically distant co-religionists, and religious outgroups, we found that higher ratings of gods as monitoring and punishing predicted decreased local favouritism (RAGs) and increased resource-sharing with distant co-religionists (DGs). The effects of punishing and monitoring gods on outgroup allocations revealed between-site variability, suggesting that in the absence of intergroup hostility, moralizing gods may be implicated in cooperative behaviour toward outgroups. These results provide support for the hypothesis that beliefs in monitoring and punitive gods help expand the circle of sustainable social interaction, and open questions about the treatment of religious outgroups.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Pregnancy increases women's nutritional requirements, yet causes aversions to nutritious foods. Most societies further restrict pregnant women's diet with food taboos. Pregnancy food aversions are ...theorized to protect mothers and fetuses from teratogens and pathogens or increase dietary diversity in response to resource scarcity. Tests of these hypotheses have had mixed results, perhaps because many studies are in Westernized populations with reliable access to food and low exposure to pathogens. If pregnancy food aversions are adaptations, however, then they likely evolved in environments with uncertain access to food and high exposure to pathogens. Pregnancy food taboos, on the other hand, have been theorized to limit resource consumption, mark social identity, or also protect mothers and fetuses from dangerous foods. There have been few tests of evolutionary theories of culturally transmitted food taboos.
We investigated these and other theories of psychophysiological food aversions and culturally transmitted food taboos among two non-Western populations of pregnant women in Mysore, India, that vary in food insecurity and exposure to infectious disease. The first was a mixed caste rural farming population (N=72), and the second was the Jenu Kurubas, a resettled population of former hunter-gatherers (N=30). Women rated their aversions to photos of 31 foods and completed structured interviews that assessed aversions and socially learned avoidances of foods, pathogen exposure, food insecurity, sources of culturally acquired dietary advice, and basic sociodemographic information. Aversions to spicy foods were associated with early trimester and nausea and vomiting, supporting a protective role against plant teratogens. Variation in exposure to pathogens did not explain variation in meat aversions or avoidances, however, raising some doubts about the importance of pathogen avoidance. Aversions to staple foods were common, but were not associated with resource stress, providing mixed support for the role of dietary diversification. Avoided foods outnumbered aversive foods, were believed to be abortifacients or otherwise harmful to the fetus, influenced diet throughout pregnancy, and were largely distinct from aversive foods. These results suggest that aversions target foods with cues of toxicity early in pregnancy, and taboos target suspected abortifacients throughout pregnancy.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Abstract
The behavioral immune system posits that disgust functions to protect animals from pathogen exposure. Therefore, cues of pathogen risk should be a primary driver influencing variation in ...disgust. Yet, to our knowledge, neither the relationship between current pathogen risk and disgust, nor the correlation between objective and perceived pathogen risk have been addressed using ecologically valid measures in a global sample. The current article reports two studies addressing these gaps. In Study 1, we include a global sample (
n
= 361) and tested the influence of both perceived pathogen exposure and an objective measure of pathogen risk—local communicable infectious disease mortality rates—on individual differences in pathogen and sexual disgust sensitivities. In Study 2, we first replicate Study 1’s analyses in another large sample (
n
= 821), targeting four countries (US, Italy, Brazil, and India); we then replaced objective and perceived pathogen risk with variables specific to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In Study 1, both local infection mortality rates and perceived infection exposure predicted unique variance in pathogen and sexual disgust. In Study 2, we found that perceived infection exposure positively predicted sexual disgust, as predicted. When substituting perceived and objective SARS-CoV-2 risk in our models, perceived risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 positively predicted pathogen and sexual disgust, and state case rates negatively predicted pathogen disgust. Further, in both studies, objective measures of risk (i.e., local infection mortality and SARS-CoV-2 rates) positively correlated with subjective measures of risk (i.e., perceived infection exposure and perceived SARS-CoV-2 risk). Ultimately, these results provide two pieces of foundational evidence for the behavioral immune system: 1) perceptions of pathogen risk accurately assay local, objective mortality risk across countries, and 2) both perceived and objective pathogen risk explain variance in disgust levels.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Purpose
Opioid use disorder among women of childbearing age has reached epidemic proportions. In rural regions of the United States, recruiting perinatal women who use nonmedical opioids to ...participate in research is wrought with challenges, including barriers such as community stigma, lack of transportation, and time constraints. The current study describes our process and challenges of recruiting pregnant and postpartum women in rural Indiana consisting of women who misuse opioids and those who do not.
Description
We employed multiple strategies to recruit participants. Methods included (1) sampling from healthcare facilities based on referrals from front-desk staff and frontline healthcare workers; (2) dissemination of flyers and brochures within healthcare facilities and the community, supported with onsite research assistant presence; (3) digital methods coupled with snowball sampling; and (4) local community talks that provided information about the study.
Assessment
Our multiple recruitment efforts revealed that building relationships with community stakeholders was key in recruiting women who use nonmedical opioids, but that digital methods were more effective in recruiting a larger sample of pregnant and postpartum women in a short amount of time.
Conclusion
We conclude by making several recommendations to enhance academic-community partnerships in order to bolster sample sizes for prolonged research studies. Furthermore, we highlight the need to destigmatize addiction in order to better serve hard-to-reach populations through research and practice.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, VSZLJ, ZAGLJ
When interacting with infants, humans often alter their speech and song in ways thought to support communication. Theories of human child-rearing, informed by data on vocal signalling across species, ...predict that such alterations should appear globally. Here, we show acoustic differences between infant-directed and adult-directed vocalizations across cultures. We collected 1,615 recordings of infant- and adult-directed speech and song produced by 410 people in 21 urban, rural and small-scale societies. Infant-directedness was reliably classified from acoustic features only, with acoustic profiles of infant-directedness differing across language and music but in consistent fashions. We then studied listener sensitivity to these acoustic features. We played the recordings to 51,065 people from 187 countries, recruited via an English-language website, who guessed whether each vocalization was infant-directed. Their intuitions were more accurate than chance, predictable in part by common sets of acoustic features and robust to the effects of linguistic relatedness between vocalizer and listener. These findings inform hypotheses of the psychological functions and evolution of human communication.
Reframing HIV Stigma and Fear Placek, Caitlyn D.; Nishimura, Holly; Hudanick, Natalie ...
Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.),
03/2019, Volume:
30, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
HIV stigma and fears surrounding the disease pose a challenge for public health interventions, particularly those that target pregnant women. In order to reduce stigma and improve the lives of ...vulnerable populations, researchers have recognized a need to integrate different types of support at various levels. To better inform HIV interventions, the current study draws on social-ecological and evolutionary theories of reproduction to predict stigma and fear of contracting HIV among pregnant women in South India. The aims of this study were twofold: compare the social-ecological model to a modified maternal-fetal protection model and test a combined model that included strong predictors from each model. The study took place in 2008–2011 in Mysore District, Karnataka, India. Using data from a cross-sectional survey and biological indicators of health, we statistically modeled social-ecological variables representing individual, interpersonal, and community/institutional levels. Participants were 645 pregnant women. The social-ecological and combined models were the best-fitting models for HIV-related stigma, and the combined model was the best fit for HIV-related fear. Our findings suggest that combining reproductive life history factors along with individual, interpersonal, and community/institutional factors are significant indicators of HIV-related stigma and fear. Results of this study support a multifaceted approach to intervention development for HIV-related stigma and fear. The combined model in this study can be used as a predictive model for future research focused on HIV stigma and fear, with the intent that dual consideration of social-ecological and evolutionary theories will improve public health communication efforts.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, ODKLJ, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Pica, the intentional ingestion of culturally determined "nonfood" substances, occurs cross-culturally and most commonly during pregnancy. The current study describes women's perceptions of ...ethnomedical and sociocultural aspects of pica along with familial acquisition and transmission of knowledge and behaviors in a South Indian population. Findings showed that in contrast to Western models of pica, nonfood consumption is not entirely taboo; consumers rely on local remedies to cure overconsumption; and perceptions of prevalence extend beyond pregnancy. Future research on pica should consider consumption patterns outside of pregnancy and the role stigma plays in individuals seeking assistance for overconsumption.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Highlights • Two neighboring South Indian populations of women have different views of pregnancy loss. • Knowledge from both populations did not reflect current evidence-based findings on the causes ...of miscarriage. • These South Indian populations would benefit from public health initiatives focused on prenatal health education.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Pregnancy fasting poses a paradox: why would a woman restrict her diet during a period of increased nutritional need? This qualitative, cross-sectional study applied biological and cultural ...evolutionary theories of pregnancy diet to emic models of fasting with the aim of establishing a testable biocultural framework of pregnancy fasting. The research took place with Muslim women residing in Mysore, India. In-depth interviews were conducted with pregnant women who have experience and knowledge of fasting during during the holy month of Ramadan. Our findings indicate that pregnancy fasting is socially acquired via multiple modes of transmission and that women do not fast according to mainstream evolutionary theories of pregnancy diet, but perhaps to gain moral capital.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
