Ultimate Answers to Proximate Questions: The Evolutionary Motivations behind Tattoos and Body Piercings in Popular Culture

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael A. Carmen ◽  
Amanda E. Guitar ◽  
Haley M. Dillon
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Population Densities ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Past Event ◽  
Symbolic Thought

Numerous studies have found that piercing and tattooing the body is an increasingly prevalent trend in modern popular culture; however, this is not only a modern practice. Evidence of various forms of body ornamentation has been found in human societies dating back thousands of years. Although prior research has focused on the potential relationships between various personality traits and the likelihood of piercing or tattooing the body, few have approached this topic from an evolutionary perspective. For instance, the general motivations for getting tattoos and piercings have tended to fall into the same three categories for hundreds of years: (a) a symbol of an important past event, love, or friendship, (b) group membership, and/or (c) a marker of individuality. We argue that these motivations are simply proximate behaviors for an ultimate evolutionary reason: the perpetuation of one's genes. In this article, we propose two new theories about the origins of body ornamentation. First, in our “human canvas” hypothesis, we propose a link between body ornamentation and the human species' historical use of symbolic thought. Second, in our “upping the ante” hypothesis, we suggest that the steady rise in popularity of tattooing and piercing in Western culture has come about due to larger population densities and advancements in healthcare, which has led individuals to seek new and unique displays of fitness (i.e., body ornamentation). We then conclude with proximate examples in popular culture to display the proposed ultimate evolutionary reasoning behind body ornamentation.

A Rapture of the Nerds? A Comparison between Transhumanist Eschatology and Christian Parousia

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-367
Author(s):  
Roberto Paura
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Point Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Species ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

Transhumanism is one of the main “ideologies of the future” that has emerged in recent decades. Its program for the enhancement of the human species during this century pursues the ultimate goal of immortality, through the creation of human brain emulations. Therefore, transhumanism offers its fol- lowers an explicit eschatology, a vision of the ultimate future of our civilization that in some cases coincides with the ultimate future of the universe, as in Frank Tipler’s Omega Point theory. The essay aims to analyze the points of comparison and opposition between transhumanist and Christian eschatologies, in particular considering the “incarnationist” view of Parousia. After an introduction concern- ing the problems posed by new scientific and cosmological theories to traditional Christian eschatology, causing the debate between “incarnationists” and “escha- tologists,” the article analyzes the transhumanist idea of mind-uploading through the possibility of making emulations of the human brain and perfect simulations of the reality we live in. In the last section the problems raised by these theories are analyzed from the point of Christian theology, in particular the proposal of a transhuman species through the emulation of the body and mind of human beings. The possibility of a transhumanist eschatology in line with the incarnationist view of Parousia is refused.

Invented Dances, Or, How Nigerian Musicians Sculpt the Body Politic

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Dotun Ayobade
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
African Music

AbstractPopular dances encapsulate the aliveness of Africa's young. Radiating an Africanist aesthetic of the cool, these moves enflesh popular music, saturating mass media platforms and everyday spaces with imageries of joyful transcendence. This essay understands scriptive dance fads as textual and choreographic calls for public embodiment. I explore how three Nigerian musicians, and their dances, have wielded scriptive prompts to elicit specific moved responses from dispersed, heterogenous, and transnational publics. Dance fads of this kind productively complicate musicological approaches that insist on divorcing contemporary African music cultures from the dancing bodies that they often conjure. Taken together, these movements enlist popular culture as a domain marked by telling contestations over musical ownership and embodied citizenship.

Cognitive-Affective Neuroscience of Depersonalization

CNS Spectrums ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 467-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan J. Stein ◽  
Daphne Simeon
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
The Body ◽  
Affective Neuroscience ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Limbic Structures ◽  
Molecular Systems ◽  
Depersonalization Disorder

ABSTRACTDepersonalization disorder (DPD) is characterized by a subjective sense of detachment from one's own being and a sense of unreality. An examination of the psychobiology of depersonalization symptoms may be useful in understanding the cognitive-affective neuroscience of embodiment. DPD may be mediated by neurocircuitry and neurotransmitters involved in the integration of sensory processing and of the body schema, and in the mediation of emotional experience and the identification of feelings. For example, DPD has been found to involve autonomic blunting, deactivation of sub-cortical structures, and disturbances in molecular systems in such circuitry. An evolutionary perspective suggests that attenuation of emotional responses, mediated by deactivation of limbic structures, may sometimes be advantageous in response to inescapable stress.

scholarly journals Peculiarities of expression indicators and accentuated personality traits in men with psoriasis without taking into account somatotype and in representatives of meso- and endo-mesomorphic somatotypes

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-544
Author(s):  
Obadeh Bassam Abdel-Rahman Al-Qaraleh ◽  
V. I. Stepanenko ◽  
T. G. Kryvonis ◽  
V. S. Shkolnikov ◽  
S. V. Prokopenko
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
Postgraduate Education ◽  
Pathological Process ◽  
The Body ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
Clinical Center ◽  
The Difference ◽  
High Level ◽  
Medical University

Annotation. Exacerbation and aggravation of psoriasis increases the chances of neurosis, depression, can significantly impair mental health through social stigma and leads to social isolation and maladaptation, a significant reduction in quality of life. Studying this problem from the standpoint of comparative assessment of the distribution of character accentuations in patients with different dermatoses can provide insight into how a certain level of adequacy of psychological adaptive response is associated with organic pathological process or genetically existing expression of certain traits. The aim of the study was to found the features of indicators of expression and features of accentuated personality traits in men with psoriasis without taking into account somatotype and in representatives of meso- and endo-mesomorphic somatotypes. Men aged 22 to 35 years, patients with psoriasis (n=100, including 32 with mild and 68 with severe course) at the Department of Skin and Venereal Diseases with a course of postgraduate education National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, Vinnytsya and Military Medical Clinical Center of the Central Region, conducted an anthropometric survey by V. V. Bunak Estimation of the expression and features of accentuated personality traits made according to G. Shmishek The reliability of the difference between the values between the independent quantitative values was determined using the U-Mann-Whitney test. In healthy subjects, taking into account and without taking into account the somatotype, it is seen that the type of physique did not significantly affect the severity of individual traits and their combinations in this group of people. With the increase in the course of psoriasis among subjects without somatotype, there is a decrease in the percentage of persons with hyperthymic and demonstrative and an increase – with emotional, pedantic, anxious, cyclothymic, excitable, dysthymic and exalted type of character accentuation; among patients of mesomorphic somatotype there is a decrease in the percentage of people with stuck and demonstrative and an increase – with emotional, pedantic, anxious, cyclothymic, excitable, dysthymic and exalted type of character accentuation; among patients of endo-mesomorphic somatotype there is a decrease in the percentage of people with hypertension and an increase – with stuck, demonstrative and excitable type of character accentuation. All this maintains a pathologically high level of affective tension, which disrupts the autonomic balance in the body, can be a pathogenic factor in the development of psychosomatic illness and leads to ineffective treatment of psoriasis.

scholarly journals Memeification of Black Women’s Trauma

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Stravens
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The People ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
History Of

This piece discusses the online and offline discourses on the lives and bodies of Black femme and nonbinary individuals and the harm that is so casually inflicted upon us. Through popular stories of harm performed around famous Black women, such as with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, I connect the history of Black women in popular culture to current online spaces that continue to minimize and trivialize our trauma. I seek to highlight that these stories are not an anomaly, but rather sentiments rooted in the misogynoir that is so entrenched in western culture and have been expanded and weaponized within the online sphere. In addition, the piece challenges the universality of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in its implementation, criticizing its propensity to forget its feminine victims. It is important to emphasize where it has failed and where it needs to be intentional about the people it has overlooked, as this is a movement that began online, where this harm is currently taking place, and at the hands and energies of Black femmes, the very people getting hurt. This piece has manifested from many conversations already occurring in online Black feminist spaces about our treatment and our needs. It invites others into the fold and seeks to encourage individuals to critically reflect on how Black femme and non-binary individuals are presented on their timeline in-between the numerous BLM posts that claim to protect them.

scholarly journals The virtual and the real. Digital culture and the body in the study of handwriting

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-26
Author(s):  
Ewan Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
The Real ◽  
Digital World

Abstract Since Traube (1861-1907) paleography has been concerned primarily with methods for transcribing, dating and placing texts. This paper responds to two changes in perspective that have occurred within western culture over the last century: the arrival of a digital world which saw the transformation of computers from calculating devices into new tools for writing and reading and a cultural shift away from a Cartesian perspective that distinguishes between body and mind and privileges self aware rationality over felt experience. For the purposes of this paper the link between these trends is that both throw new emphasis on writing as an activity rather than a product. This paper looks at how insights from the digital, and body-based disciplines of document creation might then interact with the paleographical and each other. The influences all run both ways, the paleographical can effect the digital as much an understanding of the digital can bring new ways of seeing to the paleographical.

scholarly journals A Correlative Study Between Personality Traits and the Preference of Site Selection in Cosmetic Treatment

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huan Qian ◽  
Yuxiao Ling ◽  
Chen Wang ◽  
Cameron Lenahan ◽  
Mengwen Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Cosmetic Surgery ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Body ◽  
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Personality Profiles ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Face Contour

Background: Cosmetic treatment was closely associated with beauty seekers' psychological well-being. Patients who seek cosmetic surgery often show anxiety. Nevertheless, not much is known regarding how personality traits relate to the selection of body parts that receive cosmetic treatment.Aims: This study aims to investigate the correlation between personality traits and various selection sites for cosmetic treatment via Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ).Methods: A cross-sectional approach was adopted to randomly recruited patients from a general hospital planning to undergo cosmetic treatments. All respondents completed the EPQ and provided their demographic information. The EPQ involves four scales: the extraversion (E), neuroticism (N), psychoticism (P), and lying scales (L). Psychological scales were evaluated to verify that people who selected different body sites for cosmetic intervention possessed different personality portraits.Results: A total of 426 patients with an average age of 32.14 ± 8.06 were enrolled. Among them, 384 were females, accounting for more than 90% of patients. Five treatment sites were analyzed, including the body, eye, face contour, nose, and skin. Comparatively, patients with neuroticism were more likely to undergo and demand rhinoplasty (OR 1.15, 95% CI 1.07–1.24, P < 0.001). Face contour treatment was commonly associated with extraversion (OR 1.05, 95% CI 1.00–1.11, P = 0.044), psychoticism (OR 1.13, CI 1.03–1.25, P = 0.013), and neuroticism (OR 1.05, CI 1.01–1.10, P = 0.019).Conclusions: This novel study attempted to determine the personality profiles of beauty seekers. The corresponding assessments may provide references for clinical treatment options and enhance postoperative satisfaction for both practitioners and patients.

scholarly journals Prognostic assessment of constitutional indicators influence on the indicators of personality traits of practically healthy women with different somatotypes

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
I.I. Andriievskyi ◽  
О.А. Serebrennikova ◽  
S.A. Bondar ◽  
A.V. Shayuk ◽  
I.V. Gunas
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
The Body ◽  
Healthy Population ◽  
General Group ◽  
Prognostic Assessment ◽  
Longitudinal Size ◽  
Promising Area ◽  
Medical University

It is known that both genetic factors and environmental influences affect the development of the human body. This statement also applies to a person’s personality, ie the big five – the main features that make it up. The study of the relationship between physique and personality traits among a healthy population is very relevant and is a promising area for anthropology and psychology. The purpose of the work is to conduct a prognostic assessment of the influence of anthropo-somatotypological indicators on the personality indicators in practically healthy Ukrainian women without and taking into account the somatotype. Primary anthropo-somatotypological (anthropometry according to Bunak’s scheme, Heath-Carter somatotype determination, Matiegka and American Institute of Nutrition weight composition) and personality indicators (determination of leading typological characteristics of temperament according to Eysenck, psychodynamic features of personality according to Spielberger and features of accentuated personality traits according to Shmishek, components of internality according to Rotter) of practically healthy Ukrainian women of the first mature age are selected from the data bank of materials of the research center of National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, Vinnytsya. Factor analysis was performed in the license package "Statistica 6.1". The main factors that indicate the association of personality traits of practically healthy Ukrainian women of different somatotypes with some anthropo-somatotypological indicators: mesomorphs – "the size of the girth and fat size of the body" and "the size of the longitudinal size of the body"; in ectomorphs – "the size of the girth of the body" and "the size of the fat size of the body"; in endo-mesomorphs - "the magnitude of the circumferential size of the body" and "the magnitude of the width of the mandible"; in representatives of the middle intermediate somatotype – "the magnitude of the longitudinal and circumferential dimensions of the body" and "the magnitude of SFT on the posterior surface of the shoulder." In the general group of women, it is impossible to single out the second factor that has a significant load. Analysis of the obtained relationships of interdependence of personality traits, which have the greatest prognostic value in terms of formation of human personality with anthropo-somatotypological indicators showed that women of different somatotypes identified interdependencies have certain features. Thus, the application of factor analysis made it possible to determine the most significant relationships of personality indicators with the constitutional parameters of the body in practically healthy Ukrainian women of different somatotypes.

Death and the Discourse of the Body

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 321-330
Author(s):  
Suhita Chopra Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Human Dimension ◽  
Indian Science ◽  
Different Cultures

A meaningful discourse on death needs to take into account the various ways in which the body is “constructed” in different cultures. Biomedicine, which is rooted in western culture, places a great deal of importance on the body and this creates an anxiety over death. In contrast, the Indian science of medicine draws heavily from an ancient philosophical tradition in which metaphysical ideas about the soul have contributed to the relative insignificance of the body. Both disease and death have been understood in meta-body terms and there is a cultural embrace of death rather than its denial. The article concludes by suggesting the need to move away from sheer biological essentialism in understanding the human dimension of death in different cultures.

The “tedious yammering of selves”: The End of Intimacy in Spike Jonze’s Her

2019 ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Richard Smith
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
Career Trajectory ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Sound Image ◽  
Body Experiences ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
The World

Spike Jonze’s unusual career trajectory, from the outer edges of popular culture to the center of indiewood, has resulted in a distinctive body of work that spans several genres and forms. This chapter traces Jonze’s career to ground a stylistic reading of his fourth feature film, Her (2013). Presented in three parts—Jonze’s short works, Gilles Deleuze’s “implied dream” and the “sound-image,” the lonely social world of Her—the chapter argues that Jonze’s cinematic style is an elaboration of a very simple image of a body in motion. As his style develops the relation of body and world becomes more central and more uncertain. In Her, the world is replaced by media affect and the body experiences itself as an aesthetic form. Smith explores a terrain of loneliness that sits at the center of much of Jonze’s work.

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