Dr Lynda Boothroyd
Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of DurhamOnline research
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TeachingOffice Hours: Durham Office: Room 77,???Queen's Campus Office: Room D333, ??? Courses: Introduction to Social & Developmental Psychology (PSYS1021) Abnormal & Social Psychology (PSYS2111) The Evolution of Human Behaviour (PSYC3141) Take Part in Research - Rate Some Faces! |
 Durham Campus Office: Room 77, Tel 0191 334 3289 Queen's Campus Office: Room D333, Tel 0191 334 0120 |
Current research news:TV show corrections!Lynda recently appeared on a BBC Four programme 'The Biology of Dads' to talk about the role of fathers in their daughters' physical and relationship development. As in all things, science tends to get over-simplified in the media, often through multiple people editting scripts/articles, so it's worth pointing out a couple of things which slipped in/out by accident... 1. Why do 'father absent' girls reach puberty earlier? One of the most recent theories (from noted researcher Bruce Ellis) is that during times of stress, it is advantageous for children to mature quickly and reach a point where they are no longer vulnerable to the dangers in their environment. However, neither he nor I would argue (as implied) that girls are maturing quickly to get a man to look after them. 2. We also looked at 'composite' average facial images of girls from different backgrounds, however it is important to point out that none of the individual faces featured on screen (during a demonstration of how to make a composite image) were actually from these images, as the final cut seemed to imply. We would never reveal that kind of information about someone in public. Information about the father absence composite images and the study they were drawn from can be found here. And an additional bit of extra information, rather than a correction... 3. We also covered 'facial imprinting' whereby we use our parents' faces as models for future partners (see here). One of the nuances we didn't have much time to get into during filming is that it doesn't matter whether those parents are biological parents or not, simply that you had a good relationship across childhood, so that you are able to learn from their faces. For instance, one of the pairs of 'fathers and husbands' featured was in fact a step-father and husband, but where the step-father had only lived with the woman from mid-childhood onwards, we wouldn't necessarily expect strong imprinting. |
