Comment: The Social Neuroendocrinology Example: Incorporating Culture Resolves Biobehavioral Evolutionary Paradoxes. (July 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: van Anders, Sari M.
• Is Part Of: Emotion review. Volume 6:Number 3(2014:Jul.)
• Page Start: 256
• Page End: 257
• Publication Date: 2014-07
• Subjects: culture -- gender -- hormones -- sex -- sexuality -- testosterone; Emotions -- Periodicals; Emotions -- Research -- Periodicals; 152.4
• DOI: 10.1177/1754073914523047
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1754-0739

Abstract

The target meta-analysis (Wood, Kressel, Joshi, & Louie, 2014) raises a number of red flags for research on menstrual shifts in women's psychology. In this commentary, I particularly address one: the near-absent attention to sociocultural forces in this body of work. I use social neuroendocrinology as one example of a research paradigm that integrates both evolution and socialization into studies of human behavior. I argue that incorporating attention to social constructions actually provides clearer answers to evolutionary questions and also fills the biobehavioral comparative mandate by seriously attending to human specificities alongside cross-species generalities. I close by noting that human bodies simultaneously reflect evolved and sociocultural forces, an understanding that undergirds contemporary biobehavioral research.