Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons^™

A Tri-Disciplinary Analysis Of Religion, Alicia Wallace

Social Sciences

This paper analyzes religion using a multi-disciplinary approach. Studying the Social Sciences exposes one to an opportunity not just to learn a single discipline, but three, and this unique learning experience can teach one to look at the world’s phenomena with a multi-perspective view. Using a tri-disciplinary approach when exploring topics can broaden ones outlook on how there are many ways to explore and investigate a topic in greater detail. By using Anthropological, Sociological and Geographical theoretical perspectives one can understand a topic more fully by using a multi-perspective approach when exploring this diverse world culturally, socially and physically.

Glossolalia Influences On Stress Response Among Apostolic Pentecostals, Christopher Dana Lynn

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study tests the hypothesis that long–term experience of Apostolic Pentecostal glossolalia or “speaking in tongues” reduces the reactivity of biological stress response to normal or "daily" stressors. Glossolalia is a form of religious dissociation. Dissociation is a universal capacity often conflated with “trance.” It refers to the partitioning of awareness associated with a variety of cross–cultural forms, from daydreaming and denial to possession trance, shamanic spirit journeys, and dissociative identity disorder. Dissociation is believed to reduce or filter stress by mediating evaluation of potential stressors and reactivity of the mechanisms of biological stress response. Previous studies have examined these …

Bilateral Variation In Man: Handedness, Handclasping, Armfolding And Mid-Phalangeal Hair, Carol J. Loveland

Masters Theses

A study of bilateral variation among individuals from three populations was conducted. One sample consisted of 174 Cashinahua Indians who reside along the Curanja River in the Peruvian rain forest. A second group was composed of 286 students from anthropology classes at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Eighty-six families, including 372 individuals, constituted the third sample.

Four laterality traits - handedness, armfolding, handclasping, and mid-phalangeal hair - were analyzed by population and by individual family.

The most interesting variation occurred in the frequency of right and left handclasping and in the presence or absence of mid-phalangeal hair. The percentage of …