Soldiers’ strategies for survival during the First World War
Alex Mayhew’s Making Sense of the Great War examines how British soldiers coped with the horrors of the trenches during the First World War. Delving into primary sources…
Tag: Psychology
Think like an artist to improve your decision-making
How does perspective shape the choices we make? In Decisionscape, Elspeth Kirkman explores how applying artistic principles – distance, viewpoint, composition and framing – to decision-making can help…
Book Review: Hannah Proctor’s Burnout
Burnout. The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat, by Hannah Proctor (Verso, 2024) Hannah Proctor’s Burnout is not about how tiredness arises from the daily grind. Instead, “burnout” is…
Against Better Judgment – review
Anthropologists have often explained human behaviour as though people predictably act in their own interests. But in Against Better Judgment, Patrick McKearney and Nicholas H. A. Evans compile researc…
Understanding Humans: How Social Science Can Help Solve Our Problems – review
In Understanding Humans: How Social Science Can Help Solve Our Problems, David Edmonds curates a selection of interviews with social science researchers covering the breadth of human life and society,…
A Theory of Everyone: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going – review
In A Theory of Everyone: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going, Michael Muthukrishna contends that the core issue affecting Western societies is increasing energy…
Nudging – review
In Nudging, Riccardo Viale explores the evolution of nudging (behavioural mechanisms to encourage people to make certain choices) and proposes new approaches that would empower rather than paternalise…
Anthropology-Psychology interface
Anthropology and Psychology interface: Contents Anthropology and Psychology interface: 1
Connect the Dots: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck
In Connect the Dots: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck, Christian Busch contests the notion of blind luck, arguing that adopting a “serendipity mindset” towards all social and prof…
Review: Anxious Eaters
Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets. Columbia University Press. New York: 2022. ISBN # 9780231192446 Emily Contois (The University of Tulsa)…
Mapping Algorithmic Assumptions: Reflections from a Society for Psychological Anthropology roundtable by Alexa Hagerty
Fritz Kahn, Der Mensch als Industriepalast, 1926. Detail. Image in public domain Introduction: surveil, classify and predict by Alexa Hagerty and Livia Garofalo The works distilled by the…
Craving to be heard but not seen – Chatbots, care and the encoded global psyche by Claudia Lang
Mounica Tata, Doodleodrama. “How are you today?” Wysa starts the conversation. “Not well,” I reply. “Sounds like today didn’t go well. I’m here for you. Describe how you’re…
Book Forum: Reflections on Li Zhang’s Anxious China by Priscilla Song
This book forum brings together eight anthropologists to discuss Li Zhang’s Anxious China: Inner Revolution and Politics of Psychotherapy (University of California Press 2020). Zhang examine…
Corpses in the street, psychologist on the phone: Telepsychology, neoliberalism and Covid-19 in Ecuador by Manuel Capella
Pavel Égüez, “Cuarentena (Quarantine)” (2020), Oil paint on cardboard. In March 2020, the health and funerary system collapsed in Guayaquil. The largest city in Ecuador was one of…
The Third Choice: Suicide Hotlines, Psychiatry, and the Police by Hannah Zeavin
With Covid-19 showing no sign of abating, mental health care (from ongoing therapy to helplines) continues to be an important site of treatment for many Americans. While traditional…
Christopher Kelty’s The Participant: A Century of Participation in Four Stories by Talia Dan-Cohen
The Participant: A Century of Participation in Four Stories Christopher M. Kelty University of Chicago Press, 2020. 344 pages. A book about participation? Chris Kelty’s delightful new bo…
How Rituals of Pain Help Heal
During the kavadi attam ritual in Mauritius, devotees are voluntarily pierced, in some cases hundreds of times. Dimitris Xygalatas Inside a stuffy, overcrowded, and overheated room, a gro…
How I kicked chronic migraine (And what that has to do with anthropology)
This post is about the biopsychosocial medical model and how it relates to the treatment of chronic pain. As an anthropologist, I’m particularly interested in the social part…
Review: From Virtue to Vice
Richard A. O’Connor and Penny Van Esterik. From Virtue to Vice: Negotiating Anorexia. Food, Nutrition, and Culture Series. V. 4. New York: Berghahn Books, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-78238-455-7 hardbac…
Web Roundup: Marketing, Masculinity, and Commodity Activism by Katherine Warren
On January 13th, Gillette, a razor blade brand, released a new ad campaign called, “We Believe.” The video ad opens with a collage of news clips that—unlike the…
How to Pay Attention by Nick Seaver
The main challenge in running a seminar on the anthropology of attention is that such a thing doesn’t exist.* While anthropologists often think quite deeply about attention, worrying…
Ep. #17 Slamming doors, predicting futures, picking sides & citing informants: this month on TFS
With Julia’s PhD submitted (!!!) and Jodie back from her travels, the band is finally back together! Jodie starts us off, (2:04) asking if a theory from psychology…
Can Child Sex Offenders Be Rehabilitated?
Dexter, the protagonist of a TV series by the same name, commits horrific acts of murder—but he does not sexually abuse children, which seems to make him less…
Agitated children, turbulent trajectories: Towards a comparison between Europe and South America – a workshop report by Álvaro Jiménez Molina
This article describes the main discussions and contributions of the first workshop of the International Research Network on Disruptive Behaviours. The workshop was held at the “Centre for…