Lynda Boothroyd
@drboothroyd.bsky.social
Cross-cultural and experimental psychologist / anthropologist.
Working on: appearance ideals, body image, sexual selection, gender, social transmission.
Working in: 🇬🇧 🇨🇴 🇳🇮🇲🇽 🇿🇼 🇨🇳
(A veces posteo en español.)
Prof @ Durham
http://www.boothlab.org
Working on: appearance ideals, body image, sexual selection, gender, social transmission.
Working in: 🇬🇧 🇨🇴 🇳🇮🇲🇽 🇿🇼 🇨🇳
(A veces posteo en español.)
Prof @ Durham
http://www.boothlab.org
Pinned
Lynda Boothroyd
@drboothroyd.bsky.social
· Sep 24
Pilot trial assessing acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary effects of a body image intervention for adolescents in rural Nicaragua
School-based interventions to promote body esteem and media literacy are a cost-effective way to improve body image and foster resilience against appe…
www.sciencedirect.com
New paper: body image intervention in rural Nicaragua!
Want to know more about body image education? Read this paper!
Want to know about LatAm body image projects? Read this paper!
Want to know how to rigorously report a pilot trial? Read this paper!
Want to know how I caught COVID that time...? 😆
Want to know more about body image education? Read this paper!
Want to know about LatAm body image projects? Read this paper!
Want to know how to rigorously report a pilot trial? Read this paper!
Want to know how I caught COVID that time...? 😆
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
Unexpected new advantage to volunteer-based citizen science and gamification: there's no incentive to cheat or use an LLM
new paper by Sean Westwood:
With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
November 18, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Unexpected new advantage to volunteer-based citizen science and gamification: there's no incentive to cheat or use an LLM
This looks super interesting. I get frustrated by both the weird idealisation of foragers as perfect societies and the opposite simplification. Great to see a prompt for a different way of thinking.
📣 New BBS preprint out now! 📣
"Models casting egalitarian societies as crucibles of equality perpetuate the factually uninformed notion that foragers are somehow more noble. Critiques portray egalitarianism as romantic fantasy. Neither characterization is wholly justified."
doi.org/10.1017/S014...
"Models casting egalitarian societies as crucibles of equality perpetuate the factually uninformed notion that foragers are somehow more noble. Critiques portray egalitarianism as romantic fantasy. Neither characterization is wholly justified."
doi.org/10.1017/S014...
Egalitarianism is not Equality: Moving from outcome to process in the study of human political organisation | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
Egalitarianism is not Equality: Moving from outcome to process in the study of human political organisation
doi.org
November 18, 2025 at 9:09 AM
This looks super interesting. I get frustrated by both the weird idealisation of foragers as perfect societies and the opposite simplification. Great to see a prompt for a different way of thinking.
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
Together, our findings demonstrate that men supporting women’s empowerment face heavy costs - but norms are mutable.
Policies that reduce structural barriers, address stigma around gender atypical behavior, and leverage emerging benefits can help accelerate gender-equitable change. 🎯 5/5
Policies that reduce structural barriers, address stigma around gender atypical behavior, and leverage emerging benefits can help accelerate gender-equitable change. 🎯 5/5
November 14, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Together, our findings demonstrate that men supporting women’s empowerment face heavy costs - but norms are mutable.
Policies that reduce structural barriers, address stigma around gender atypical behavior, and leverage emerging benefits can help accelerate gender-equitable change. 🎯 5/5
Policies that reduce structural barriers, address stigma around gender atypical behavior, and leverage emerging benefits can help accelerate gender-equitable change. 🎯 5/5
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
🚨 🐍 Our new paper on the consequences men face when countering patriarchal norms in rural Tanzania 🐍.🚨
We carried out focus groups and detailed interviews with a whopping 172 women and men about their perceptions of men who support women's empowerment... 📝 1/5
We carried out focus groups and detailed interviews with a whopping 172 women and men about their perceptions of men who support women's empowerment... 📝 1/5
“A snake with no teeth”: Urbanization shifts perceptions of men who support women’s empowerment in Northwestern Tanzania
Achieving gender equality requires the support of all genders, but efforts to engage men in women’s empowerment initiatives have been fraught with res…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 14, 2025 at 6:45 PM
🚨 🐍 Our new paper on the consequences men face when countering patriarchal norms in rural Tanzania 🐍.🚨
We carried out focus groups and detailed interviews with a whopping 172 women and men about their perceptions of men who support women's empowerment... 📝 1/5
We carried out focus groups and detailed interviews with a whopping 172 women and men about their perceptions of men who support women's empowerment... 📝 1/5
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
"Racial hereditarian research remains unjustified and harmful: A reply to Woodley et al. (2025a, b)" 🧪
Today is the day! Our reply to the two concurrent critiques (from the same set of authors) is now published in the journal Intelligence 🧵 1/
November 12, 2025 at 6:32 PM
"Racial hereditarian research remains unjustified and harmful: A reply to Woodley et al. (2025a, b)" 🧪
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
On the demise of a shining light in the local arts here in northeast England and of funding of the arts more generally in the UK. Sad and shameful 😢 …
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
Durham’s Lumiere festival was a beacon of hope and togetherness – we cannot let the lights go out on the rest of the arts
The UK’s culture sector needs financial, political and public support to survive. Funding is not a ‘favour’. It is an investment in imagination, in our shared experience – and in inspiration and joy
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:45 PM
On the demise of a shining light in the local arts here in northeast England and of funding of the arts more generally in the UK. Sad and shameful 😢 …
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
"Given the complexity and length of the song text, coincidence can be ruled out as the cause of the reproduction of the song lyrics," the court wrote in a press release.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
good news
OpenAI loses song lyrics copyright case in German court
OpenAI lost a copyright infringement case in a lower German court for using popular song lyrics in its ChatGPT language model without paying royalties […]
OpenAI loses song lyrics copyright case in German court
OpenAI lost a copyright infringement case in a lower German court for using popular song lyrics in its ChatGPT language model without paying royalties […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
November 11, 2025 at 10:01 PM
"Given the complexity and length of the song text, coincidence can be ruled out as the cause of the reproduction of the song lyrics," the court wrote in a press release.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
Such a lovely quote. We can be rigorous AND empathic - to the word in general and our study participants in particular.
And more beautifully expressed than my usual: Be a good scientist. DBAD. 😆
I've rarely had such lovely rejection letters as I got from Jane. Hers remain big shoes to fill.
And more beautifully expressed than my usual: Be a good scientist. DBAD. 😆
I've rarely had such lovely rejection letters as I got from Jane. Hers remain big shoes to fill.
Hard to think of a better epitaph for a scientist than this: “She inspired us to see the world with both rigor and heart”
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
In Memoriam Jane B. Lancaster (1935–2025), a Pioneer in Anthropology
Click on the article title to read more.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Such a lovely quote. We can be rigorous AND empathic - to the word in general and our study participants in particular.
And more beautifully expressed than my usual: Be a good scientist. DBAD. 😆
I've rarely had such lovely rejection letters as I got from Jane. Hers remain big shoes to fill.
And more beautifully expressed than my usual: Be a good scientist. DBAD. 😆
I've rarely had such lovely rejection letters as I got from Jane. Hers remain big shoes to fill.
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
New longitudinal study on the ethnic identity development of minoritized kids!
Children’s positive identity-related feelings remained stable, BUT their negative identity-related feelings decreased over time.
Mothers’ cultural socialization predicted this decrease (1/2)
#devpsy #devsci #socialpsyc
Children’s positive identity-related feelings remained stable, BUT their negative identity-related feelings decreased over time.
Mothers’ cultural socialization predicted this decrease (1/2)
#devpsy #devsci #socialpsyc
November 9, 2025 at 9:17 PM
New longitudinal study on the ethnic identity development of minoritized kids!
Children’s positive identity-related feelings remained stable, BUT their negative identity-related feelings decreased over time.
Mothers’ cultural socialization predicted this decrease (1/2)
#devpsy #devsci #socialpsyc
Children’s positive identity-related feelings remained stable, BUT their negative identity-related feelings decreased over time.
Mothers’ cultural socialization predicted this decrease (1/2)
#devpsy #devsci #socialpsyc
So, lots of people picking up Kevin's post to declare all Evolutionary Psychology/ists misogynistic pervs. And I get why but look:
I trained in Evo Psych. I trained in Behavioural Ecology too which maybe helps but I came into academia an enthusiastic researcher of sexual selection.
1/
I trained in Evo Psych. I trained in Behavioural Ecology too which maybe helps but I came into academia an enthusiastic researcher of sexual selection.
1/
Evolutionary psychology makes a big to-do about their finding that sexual selection favors a "feminine body type" that "signals fertility/reproductive potential", including some rather... silly research. Turns out, those traits don't seem to signal reproductive success. Oops! doi.org/10.1017/ehs....
November 9, 2025 at 10:32 PM
So, lots of people picking up Kevin's post to declare all Evolutionary Psychology/ists misogynistic pervs. And I get why but look:
I trained in Evo Psych. I trained in Behavioural Ecology too which maybe helps but I came into academia an enthusiastic researcher of sexual selection.
1/
I trained in Evo Psych. I trained in Behavioural Ecology too which maybe helps but I came into academia an enthusiastic researcher of sexual selection.
1/
Annette Karmiloff-Smith.
She ended every seminar/keynote I ever saw with a picture of her kids and grandkids as a note on what's important and that succesful women in academia can have a family too.
I told her the second time how inspirational I'd found that and she was absolutely lovely.
She ended every seminar/keynote I ever saw with a picture of her kids and grandkids as a note on what's important and that succesful women in academia can have a family too.
I told her the second time how inspirational I'd found that and she was absolutely lovely.
Right, enough of James Watson - who's a senior academic you've met who's been an utter delight?
I'll go first: Jocelyn Bell Burnell
I'll go first: Jocelyn Bell Burnell
November 9, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Annette Karmiloff-Smith.
She ended every seminar/keynote I ever saw with a picture of her kids and grandkids as a note on what's important and that succesful women in academia can have a family too.
I told her the second time how inspirational I'd found that and she was absolutely lovely.
She ended every seminar/keynote I ever saw with a picture of her kids and grandkids as a note on what's important and that succesful women in academia can have a family too.
I told her the second time how inspirational I'd found that and she was absolutely lovely.
JFC... Genuinely don't know what to say to this except... 😬😬😱😱
Oops. Ooooooooooooops.
I do hope that nobody has been given or denied a job/promotion based on their SpringerNature citation counts in the past 15 years.
arxiv.org/pdf/2511.01675
h/t @nathlarigaldie.bsky.social
I do hope that nobody has been given or denied a job/promotion based on their SpringerNature citation counts in the past 15 years.
arxiv.org/pdf/2511.01675
h/t @nathlarigaldie.bsky.social
November 7, 2025 at 5:18 PM
JFC... Genuinely don't know what to say to this except... 😬😬😱😱
He intentado cocinar arepa a casa tres veces y siempre terminaron seca/sin sabor. Este año visite la zona rural en la costa caribe de Colombia y come arepa gorda.
Hoy busque una receta parecida ... y por primera vez logré! Arepa de queso muy deliciosa 😋
#MeEncantaColombia
🇨🇴
Hoy busque una receta parecida ... y por primera vez logré! Arepa de queso muy deliciosa 😋
#MeEncantaColombia
🇨🇴
Achievement unlocked: tasty arepa con queso, costeña style!
🇨🇴❤️🇨🇴
🇨🇴❤️🇨🇴
November 4, 2025 at 7:38 PM
He intentado cocinar arepa a casa tres veces y siempre terminaron seca/sin sabor. Este año visite la zona rural en la costa caribe de Colombia y come arepa gorda.
Hoy busque una receta parecida ... y por primera vez logré! Arepa de queso muy deliciosa 😋
#MeEncantaColombia
🇨🇴
Hoy busque una receta parecida ... y por primera vez logré! Arepa de queso muy deliciosa 😋
#MeEncantaColombia
🇨🇴
Achievement unlocked: tasty arepa con queso, costeña style!
🇨🇴❤️🇨🇴
🇨🇴❤️🇨🇴
November 4, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Achievement unlocked: tasty arepa con queso, costeña style!
🇨🇴❤️🇨🇴
🇨🇴❤️🇨🇴
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
Been reading "What is Innateness?" by Paul Griffiths (2002) philpapers.org/rec/EGRWII in which he offers this very sound advice:
November 2, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Been reading "What is Innateness?" by Paul Griffiths (2002) philpapers.org/rec/EGRWII in which he offers this very sound advice:
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
Very excited to have been awarded a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant for a project where we'll be investigating facial shape changes, parent-child facial resemblance, and face preferences across puberty. Together with @drboothroyd.bsky.social, Elizabeth Meins, and @irisholzleitner.bsky.social 🤩
November 2, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Very excited to have been awarded a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant for a project where we'll be investigating facial shape changes, parent-child facial resemblance, and face preferences across puberty. Together with @drboothroyd.bsky.social, Elizabeth Meins, and @irisholzleitner.bsky.social 🤩
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
Our PHd student and organiser of @aroaceresearch.bsky.social wrote this blog post on what it means to be asexual or aromantic: www.brook.org.uk/blog/what-do...
what does it mean to be asexual or aromantic? - Brook
For Asexual Awareness Week (Ace Week) 2025, Kristin Käuper, PhD student at the Centre for Love, Sex, and Relationships (CLSR) at the University of Leeds and
www.brook.org.uk
October 30, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Our PHd student and organiser of @aroaceresearch.bsky.social wrote this blog post on what it means to be asexual or aromantic: www.brook.org.uk/blog/what-do...
There's a lot of discussion right now (understandably) about where we are at relative to 1930s Germany ... but I'd really like to hear from historians of the Spanish Civil War. Are there parallels there too? And if so what lessons should we draw?
If you told the average American this time last year that the border patrol chief would be doing barely-disguised nazi salutes while communicating “we will not be stopped,” they would think you’ve lost it. And yet, we are here.
DHS posted this video two hours after I asked about the viral photos of Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino.
The portion where he does hand signals is from Bovino leaving court in Chicago yesterday.
The portion where he does hand signals is from Bovino leaving court in Chicago yesterday.
October 29, 2025 at 6:40 PM
There's a lot of discussion right now (understandably) about where we are at relative to 1930s Germany ... but I'd really like to hear from historians of the Spanish Civil War. Are there parallels there too? And if so what lessons should we draw?
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
Less than a week left to apply! Reposts appreciated! 🙏
RA opportunity! Join our project on facial shape development and resemblance. Part-time, mostly remote, Jan-June 2026.
durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
CASUAL ACADEMIC - Research Assistant/Associate
Click the link provided to see the complete job description.
durham.taleo.net
October 21, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Less than a week left to apply! Reposts appreciated! 🙏
There are major works of social psychology specifically investigating English football hooliganism in the 80s.
As someone who was a child in the 80s and still remembers what it was like when football fans poured out of trains at Leicester station, during those years when English teams were literally banned from European competitions because of the violence, 'less than well mannered' is quite the pile of BS.
The chances that Robert Jenrick *literally* went to "more than a few football matches in the away end" at Villa Park *in the 1980s* (ie, before his 8th birthday on 8.1.1990) are vanishingly small to non-existent. (He may have been in the away end at Villa Park as a child or teenager in the 1990s)
October 18, 2025 at 10:34 AM
There are major works of social psychology specifically investigating English football hooliganism in the 80s.
As someone who was a child in the 80s and still remembers what it was like when football fans poured out of trains at Leicester station, during those years when English teams were literally banned from European competitions because of the violence, 'less than well mannered' is quite the pile of BS.
The chances that Robert Jenrick *literally* went to "more than a few football matches in the away end" at Villa Park *in the 1980s* (ie, before his 8th birthday on 8.1.1990) are vanishingly small to non-existent. (He may have been in the away end at Villa Park as a child or teenager in the 1990s)
October 18, 2025 at 10:33 AM
As someone who was a child in the 80s and still remembers what it was like when football fans poured out of trains at Leicester station, during those years when English teams were literally banned from European competitions because of the violence, 'less than well mannered' is quite the pile of BS.
The main lesson I'm taking from this is that my constant bleating these days about people in these scenarios needing an SEM with a latent variable is the right answer! 😁😆
(Even if it isn't the only good-enough answer.)
(Even if it isn't the only good-enough answer.)
New blog post!
Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?
(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)
www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...
Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?
(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)
www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...
If you have two measures of the same confounder, you can just include both of them in your regression model
Sometimes, researchers worry about multicollinearity in situations where it’s actually a non-issue. Here’s one such scenario.
Imagine a situation where you are interested in the effect of X on Y (X...
www.the100.ci
October 14, 2025 at 8:09 AM
The main lesson I'm taking from this is that my constant bleating these days about people in these scenarios needing an SEM with a latent variable is the right answer! 😁😆
(Even if it isn't the only good-enough answer.)
(Even if it isn't the only good-enough answer.)
Help! I have lots of slides on behavioural sex differences in old meta-analyses. I have been trying to update them. Sometimes successfully (albeit often smaller effects!) but sometimes unsuccessfully because there's nothing more recent ... do I cut ALL the old ones? Or only the superseded ones?
October 13, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Help! I have lots of slides on behavioural sex differences in old meta-analyses. I have been trying to update them. Sometimes successfully (albeit often smaller effects!) but sometimes unsuccessfully because there's nothing more recent ... do I cut ALL the old ones? Or only the superseded ones?
Reposted by Lynda Boothroyd
Teaching a fun science & critical thinking course this semester.
Trying out THAMES as a handy mnemonic for what to look for in evaluating science papers & such (obvs not all are as relevant for every paper)...
Trying out THAMES as a handy mnemonic for what to look for in evaluating science papers & such (obvs not all are as relevant for every paper)...
October 10, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Teaching a fun science & critical thinking course this semester.
Trying out THAMES as a handy mnemonic for what to look for in evaluating science papers & such (obvs not all are as relevant for every paper)...
Trying out THAMES as a handy mnemonic for what to look for in evaluating science papers & such (obvs not all are as relevant for every paper)...
Important to get more out here on how appearance pressures are felt differently across different groups within countries just as much as across them.
New paper alert - Great work on body dissatisfaction and disordered eating among South Asian women and girls in the UK - please do share!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
The pressure to be ‘Fair and Lovely’: Exploring the contributing factors to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating among South Asian women and girls in the UK
Little is known about culturally relevant factors contributing to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating among British South Asians, despite data …
www.sciencedirect.com
October 8, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Important to get more out here on how appearance pressures are felt differently across different groups within countries just as much as across them.