Research
The central focus of much of my research is how cultural practices impact health. In New York for my doctoral dissertation, I explored how Pentecostal speaking in tongues influences proxy biomarkers of stress activity (cortisol and alpha-amylase). At Alabama, I have developed ongoing projects investigating the influence of domestic fire on relaxation response (Fireside Relaxation Study), tattooing on endocrine and immune function (Inking of Immunity), and collaborated with University of North Carolina Wilmington and American Samoa Department of Health colleagues on Pepe, Aiga, and Tinā Health Study (PATHS) in American Samoa, a study of Zika Virus transmission and prevention knowledge. I also have complementary interests in evolution education and public engagement with science and anthropology. My lab has published on family dynamics in anthropology (Family & the Field), developing and teaching anthropology to elementary age students (Anthropology Is Elemental), our approach to undergraduate research training, hosting conferences and events, and podcasting.
Students in my lab, affectionately known as HBERGers, engage in multiple ongoing and overlapping projects based in human behavioral ecology, neuroanthropology, and evolutionary psychology. Following are the major themes of my research and that of my lab and a few representative publications from these projects.
Students in my lab, affectionately known as HBERGers, engage in multiple ongoing and overlapping projects based in human behavioral ecology, neuroanthropology, and evolutionary psychology. Following are the major themes of my research and that of my lab and a few representative publications from these projects.
Research Themes
Dissociation, Absorption, Self-Deception, and Consciousness
Research in this area began with a paper I wrote as a master's student wherein I surveyed the epidemiological literature on dissociation and called for a model of dissociation with more interdisciplinary utility. The view of dissociation as an adaptive function of psyche was the theoretical basis of my dissertation work, called "Influences of Speaking in Tongues on Stress Response among Apostolic Pentecostals," which I researched at churches in upstate New York (funded by NSF DDRIG). In New York I also collaborated with psychologists Nate Pipitone (Florida Gulf Coast University) and Julian Keenan (Montclair State University) on a study of self-deception and mating success, based on evolutionary investment theory. At Alabama, I started the Fireside Relaxation Study to explore the cognitive influences of domestic fires (e.g., hearth and campfires), particularly with respect to evolutionary scenarios and potential application for evolutionary medicine. This research has recently been supported with a gift from Napoleon Fireplaces & Grills and received considerable media attention.
Following are select publications representing this area of research (*indicates student co-author):
Tattooing, Identity, Social and Biological Signaling, and Health
We were prompted to start the Inking of Immunity study in my lab when a student joined who was interested in exploring tattooing from a medical anthropology perspective. The student dropped out before we started data collection, but we developed a biocultural study examining gender roles of tattooed women in the South and potentially associated health outcomes. Johnna Dominguez (MA) and other students ultimately collected the data for the first study in Alabama. We tested an evolutionary signaling hypothesis about tattooing using research design adapted from exercise science. I have extended and expanded this research to the South Pacific and Seattle in collaboration with colleagues at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Baylor, and the National University of Samoa and with support from crowdfunding, Wenner-Gren, and National Science Foundation. We are currently supported by NSF Grant for a study of Indigenous Samoan handtapped tatau as a model of cultural identity and the impact of wearing such marks (or not) on biomarkers of immune (immunoglobulin A, bacteria-killing, interleukin-1B, interleukin-6, C-reactive protein) and endocrine (cortisol, alpha-amylase) function. We conducted an epidemiological survey of tattoos, piercing, and related medical complications among college students and athletes to test a costly honest signaling hypothesis about tattooing. During the "down time" of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started a peer-to-peer tattoo research podcast with anthropology doctoral student Mike Smetana and evolutionary psychologist Becci Owens (University of Sunderland). My lab has started a new collaboration with Saige Kelmelis (University of South Dakota), Eric Shattuck (University of Texas San Antonio), and Jessica Perrotte (Texas State University) exploring the relationships between sickness experiences, tattooing, and the epiphenomena called "tattoo flu" and "addiction."
Representative publications representing this area of research (*indicates student co-author):
Public Engagement, Reflexivity, and Engaged Scholarship in Anthropology
I teach and promote public engagement as part of the research process. Public engagement with research is a critical part of the scientific and scholarly enterprise that is often left to academics to figure out for themselves. I include it as part of my research and the training I give students in class and the lab. This has included the development of a service-learning course in anthropology called Anthropology Is Elemental that many HBERG students participate in and that has involved collaboration with partner schools, such as Eagles Wings Montessori School in Antananarivo, Madagascar. I have two peer-to-peer podcasts that involve student producers and editors.
Representative publications in this area are highlighted below:
Research in this area began with a paper I wrote as a master's student wherein I surveyed the epidemiological literature on dissociation and called for a model of dissociation with more interdisciplinary utility. The view of dissociation as an adaptive function of psyche was the theoretical basis of my dissertation work, called "Influences of Speaking in Tongues on Stress Response among Apostolic Pentecostals," which I researched at churches in upstate New York (funded by NSF DDRIG). In New York I also collaborated with psychologists Nate Pipitone (Florida Gulf Coast University) and Julian Keenan (Montclair State University) on a study of self-deception and mating success, based on evolutionary investment theory. At Alabama, I started the Fireside Relaxation Study to explore the cognitive influences of domestic fires (e.g., hearth and campfires), particularly with respect to evolutionary scenarios and potential application for evolutionary medicine. This research has recently been supported with a gift from Napoleon Fireplaces & Grills and received considerable media attention.
Following are select publications representing this area of research (*indicates student co-author):
- CD Lynn. Transcendental Medication: The Evolution of Mind, Culture, and Healing. Routledge Press, 2022 (ISBN 9780367472634).
- CD Lynn. Would our early ancestors have watched the Super Bowl? Sapiens, January 31, 2019 https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/history-of-fire-super-bowl/.
- CD Lynn, JJ Paris, CA Frye, LM Schell. Religious-commitment signaling and impression management amongst Pentecostals: Relationships to salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2015, 15(3-4):299-319. http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15685373-12342152.
- CD Lynn. Hearth and campfire influences on arterial blood pressure: Defraying the costs of the social brain through fireside relaxation. Evolutionary Psychology, 2014, 12(5):983-1003, epjournal.net/3397.
- CD Lynn, RN Pipitone, JP Keenan. To thine own self be false: Self-deceptive enhancement and sexual awareness influences on mating success. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 2014, 8(2):109-122, doi: 10.1037/h0097255.
- CD Lynn, J Paris, CA Frye, LM Schell. Salivary alpha-amylase and cortisol among Pentecostals on a worship and nonworship day. American Journal of Human Biology, 2010, 22(6):819-822. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.21088.
- CD Lynn. Adaptive and maladaptive dissociation: An epidemiological and anthropological comparison and proposition for an expanded dissociation model. Anthropology of Consciousness, 2005, 16(2):16-50. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ac.2005.16.2.16/pdf.
Tattooing, Identity, Social and Biological Signaling, and Health
We were prompted to start the Inking of Immunity study in my lab when a student joined who was interested in exploring tattooing from a medical anthropology perspective. The student dropped out before we started data collection, but we developed a biocultural study examining gender roles of tattooed women in the South and potentially associated health outcomes. Johnna Dominguez (MA) and other students ultimately collected the data for the first study in Alabama. We tested an evolutionary signaling hypothesis about tattooing using research design adapted from exercise science. I have extended and expanded this research to the South Pacific and Seattle in collaboration with colleagues at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Baylor, and the National University of Samoa and with support from crowdfunding, Wenner-Gren, and National Science Foundation. We are currently supported by NSF Grant for a study of Indigenous Samoan handtapped tatau as a model of cultural identity and the impact of wearing such marks (or not) on biomarkers of immune (immunoglobulin A, bacteria-killing, interleukin-1B, interleukin-6, C-reactive protein) and endocrine (cortisol, alpha-amylase) function. We conducted an epidemiological survey of tattoos, piercing, and related medical complications among college students and athletes to test a costly honest signaling hypothesis about tattooing. During the "down time" of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started a peer-to-peer tattoo research podcast with anthropology doctoral student Mike Smetana and evolutionary psychologist Becci Owens (University of Sunderland). My lab has started a new collaboration with Saige Kelmelis (University of South Dakota), Eric Shattuck (University of Texas San Antonio), and Jessica Perrotte (Texas State University) exploring the relationships between sickness experiences, tattooing, and the epiphenomena called "tattoo flu" and "addiction."
Representative publications representing this area of research (*indicates student co-author):
- CD Lynn, ME Howells, MP Muehlenbein, H Wood*, GW Caballero*, TJ Nowak*, J Gassen. Psychoneuroimmunology and tattooing. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 2022 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-022-00202-x).
- CD Lynn. Untangling tattoos’ influence on immune response. The Conversation, October 2, 2019, https://theconversation.com/untangling-tattoos-influence-on-immune-response-121852.
- CD Lynn, ME Howells, D Herdrich, J Ioane, D Hudson, TW Fitiao. The evolutionary adaptation of body art: Tattoo as an honest signal of enhanced immune response in American Samoa. American Journal of Human Biology, 2019, 5:151-165.Online version, e23347, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajhb.23347.
- CD Lynn, T Puckett*, A Guitar*, ND Roy*. Shirts or skins?: Tattoos as costly honest signals of fitness and affiliation among US intercollegiate athletes and other undergraduates. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2019, 5:151-165, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-018-0174-4.
- CD Lynn, JT Dominguez*, JA DeCaro. Tattooing to “toughen” up: Tattoo experience and secretory immunoglobulin A. American Journal of Human Biology, 2016, 28:603-609, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.22847/abstract.
Public Engagement, Reflexivity, and Engaged Scholarship in Anthropology
I teach and promote public engagement as part of the research process. Public engagement with research is a critical part of the scientific and scholarly enterprise that is often left to academics to figure out for themselves. I include it as part of my research and the training I give students in class and the lab. This has included the development of a service-learning course in anthropology called Anthropology Is Elemental that many HBERG students participate in and that has involved collaboration with partner schools, such as Eagles Wings Montessori School in Antananarivo, Madagascar. I have two peer-to-peer podcasts that involve student producers and editors.
Representative publications in this area are highlighted below:
- C Ocobock and CD Lynn (eds). Special Issue: #Hackademics: Hacks Towards Success in Academia, American Journal of Human Biology, 2022, 34(S1).
- L Brazelton, M Howells, L Landgraf, CD Lynn. Impacts of family and fieldwork on career/family balance among tenure-track and tenured anthropologists. American Journal of Human Biology, 2022, 34(S1): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.23686.
- C Ocobock, CD Lynn. Human biology is a matter of life and death: Effective science communication for COVID-19 research. American Journal of Human Biology (Invited commentary), 2020, 32(5), https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23472.
- CD Lynn, A Guitar*, CMT Keck, AL Rector. Applied evolutionary education: The benefits and costs of hosting regional evolution conferences. Evolution: Education and Outreach, 2020, 13(7), https://doi.org/10.1186/s12052-020-00121-z.
- K Dzirasa, CD Lynn, JK Montclare, L Stirling, B Wuest. We must change how we fund graduate school. Inside Higher Ed, September 1, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/09/01/more-federal-research-funding-should-go-directly-grad-students-opinion.
- CD Lynn, ME Howells, MJ Stein*. Family and the field: Expectations of a field-based research career affect researcher family planning decisions. PLOS One, 2018, 13(9): e0203500. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203500.
- MJ Stein*, A Daugherty*, I Rivera*, J Muzzo*, CD Lynn. Thinking outside anthropology’s box: Socializing undergraduates through collaborative research, teaching, and service. Annals of Anthropological Practice, 2016, 40(2):164-177. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/napa.12099/full.
- JL Funkhouser*, J Friel*, M Carr*, K Likos*, CD Lynn. Anthropology is elemental: Anthropological perspective through multilevel teaching. Annals of Anthropological Practice, 2016, 40(2):246-257. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/napa.12105/full.
