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This study investigates the effects of Bharatanatyam dance on stress, mood, and anxiety. I have danced Bharatanatyam since I was 8 years old, it has offered me a way to release stress and anxiety. This study provides empirical data to support the claim that Bharatanatyam has therapeutic effects that release stress and reduce anxiety. This investigation was conducted through self-reports and interviews. A Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) scale was used to determine positive and negative effects. The average positive affect during the “dance weeks” (DW) was 46.6 and the average negative affect was 12.2. During the “no dance weeks” (NDW), the average positive effect was 23.7 and the average negative affect was 31. The participant’s interview PANAS results had an average positive effect of 39.8 and an average negative effect of 12.8. Analyzing the self-report journaling highlighted a more prevalent use of positive words during the DW and a more significant use of negative words during the NDW. The Bharatanatyam dancers who were probed to enter post-performance environment for an interview also used positive words to describe Bharatanatyam dancing. In conclusion, practicing Bharatanatyam had an overall positive effect on mood, and can reduce stress and anxiety.
and these exchanges may be critical for achieving evolutionary goals, such as reproduction.
Depending on their reputation, an individual may or may not gain access to resources in order to
achieve their evolutionary goals. Reputation is typically described as being “positive” and
“negative,” but the current study aimed to identify potential nuances to reputations beyond the
traditional dichotomy. It was hypothesized that different types of reputations (such as “friendly”,
“dishonest”, and “aggressive”) would group together in categories beyond “positive” and
“negative.” Additionally, individuals with different life history strategies might find different
reputations important, because the reputations they find most important may help them get the
kinds of resources they need to attain their specific evolutionary goals. Therefore, it was also
predicted that the importance individuals place on different types of reputations would vary as a
function of life history strategy. Exploratory factor analysis identified a five factor structure for
reputations. Individuals also placed varying levels of importance on different types of
reputations, and found some reputations more important than others depending on their life
history strategy. This study demonstrates that reputational information is more nuanced than
previously thought and future research should consider that there may be more than just
“positive” and “negative” reputations in social interactions.
The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-cultural differences between the United States and Turkey by coding multiple dimensions, such as parental intrusiveness, child persistence, and various others. The main research questions of this paper were as follows: (1) How does parental intrusiveness vary by country? (2) How does child persistence vary by country? and (3) Are parental intrusiveness and child persistence correlated, and if so, what is the direction of the correlation? The hypotheses were that (1) Turkish parents would score higher on parental intrusiveness, (2) American children would show higher levels of persistence, and (3) Parental intrusiveness and child persistence are correlated, with higher levels of parental intrusiveness resulting in lower levels of child persistence. While all of the hypotheses were supported with statistically significant results, it was found that in the U.S., higher parental intrusiveness does result in lower levels of child persistence, but in Turkey, parental intrusiveness was not a predictor of child persistence. The findings are therefore able to support cross-cultural differences in the correlation between parental intrusiveness and child persistence.
The sociological model of mental illness (Weitz, 2020, pp. 146-148) offers a much needed contrast to the disproportionate dominance of the medical model in research, public policy, and popular discourse (Weitz, 2020, pp. 145-146 & 158-160). Unfortunately, the sociological model receives little attention in comparison (Mulvaney, 2001), although there has been a slight revival in recent years. However, the bulk of research on mental illness within the sociological model is predominantly quantitative, relying heavily on statistics and reducing complex systemic processes to various separated variables (Chandler, 2019; Mullaney, 2016; Spates & Slatton, 2021). Both sociological and psychological research on mental illness tend to be dominated by a highly quantitative focus on ‘social factors’, and generally shy away from examining the role of macro-level social structures and institutions. Consequently, even the sociological model of mental illness tends to fall short of implicating the underlying socio-economic system as a potential contributor to psychological harm and distress. This paper offers critiques of the medical model of mental illness and highlights both the strengths and shortcomings of work in the sociological model. I will also attempt to address these issues by providing a sociological and philosophical analysis of how the capitalist socio-economic system, and systems of oppression in general, shapes social constructions of mental illness and inflicts chronic stress and stigma, leading to much of the psychological distress that many people currently experience.