CEHS Graduate Student

Christopher D. Lynn
Research Assistant

University at Albany
Arts & Sciences 112
Albany, NY 12222
cl1288@albany.edu

MA, Anthropology, University at Albany, 2006
BA, Cultural Anthropology, City University of New York, 2002

Research interests
My focus is medical and psychological anthropology. I'm interested in the biocultural adaptations and the effects of psychosocial stress on mental well-being. My research concerns examining dissociation as an adaptation to contend with psychosocial stress. As part of my Master's requirements, I analyzed the use of dissociation as a means of measuring how well-adapted a population is to its environment. I am based this analysis on studies that have used the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) to measure dissociation, particularly Dissociative Disorders, in general populations. Because the DES is designed to measure pathology rather than well-being, I pilot tested and am continuing to refine a scale to measure adaptation, called the Anth-DES. For my dissertation I plan to implement the Anth-DES in conjunction with cortisol and testosterone measures (as surrogates of stress) and ethnographic study among a Pentecostal group in New York's Hudson Valley. I am conducting this work in conjunction with the Evolutionary Psychology Lab.

Publications
2005:
*Adaptive and Maladaptive Dissociation: An Epidemiological and Anthropological Comparison and Proposition for an Expanded Dissociation Model. Anthropology of Consciousness 16(2).
*(Best Paper Award, SAC, 2006)