@drboothroyd
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
There was quite a few years where the children were very insistent that daddy was a scientist and mummy was a teacher and I can tell you that did NOT get to go unchallenged ever!
They are both now teenagers and properly indoctrinated that Psychology Is A Science Actually.
Every time I get annoyed by building standards and Health and safety regulations, I remember the front of our house nearly fell off because some builders in 1970 just scattered short bits of steel in the *4 metre* 'reinforced concrete' lintel on our bedroom window.
Which way did the peep hole face... ?!
So in case anyone finds it useful: 51 years after the death of their fascist dictator, Spain is still (only just?) getting back stuff he and his family appropriated. A l'il castle in this case...
That study-to-paper ratio is ... certainly something...
More than 300 right, if we treat the period in which the political entity 'England' was held to include Wales as not 'England' as we understand it now? c. 650 years? (Assuming total break up, rather than Scotland splitting off.)
Aw don't make us all sad all over again for the tightly written and produced single-film Hobbit we could have had...
📃 Call for Papers 📃
“Current and New Directions in Cross-Cultural Gender Research in Psychology”
Abstracts due: 01 May 2026
#SocialPsyc #AcademicSky #PhDSky
My 40th birthday was a formal-steampunk-wear bash at a v historical gin bar in Durham. About 30 ppl in corsetry and top hats and such, friends having come from all corners of the UK, absolutely amazing evening. Real 'oh wow these people really do like me' experience.
Eugh. The funny thing is I know real people who write those kinds of posts/emails. Obviously, it's based on having been trained on similar content (amongst other stuff) but I did have a moment of feeling like I knew the 'person' writing.
I'm an equal opportunities cynic. That being said, I think chimps and bonobos have basic meta cognition. But that's because there's evidence for it.
It frustrates me that people who are so reluctant to accept that there are other species capable of complex cognition or sentience, yet so quick to assign it to their fancy autocorrect.
Yeesh. Someone get those women real regency short stays.
That said, my dad and stepdad are both reliably grateful recipients of interesting nonfiction books and I usually dip.into anything I buy them as a gift. Retired teachers both.
Right. I rarely read non fiction books anymore other than targetted reading for specific info I need. But OTOH I read 22 systematic reviews just these last 2 days so you better believe my bedtime entertainment was delightful escapism.
I've changed my mind - I think 'population collapse with the survivors remaining enslaved to the whims of their owners' makes horses a brilliant analogy for what happens if fully capable human-like AI ever really did take over our jobs.
It's like the horsey equivalent of The Island...
I recently discovered when examining a thesis that St Andrews still has my old IT system username for me, so that's also 2001. And although my login changed when I came back as staff, my Durham email address is the same one got as an undergraduate in 1997. For social media: Livejournal in 2002.
'Can do whatever they want' is a weird way to say 'vastly reduced in number with those who remain still forced to carry humans and do as they're told.'
I have a Ninja It depends on the size you like mine grills fryes. Air roasts bakes and dehydrated They have double ovens Or single
My mother in law is very evangelical about air fryers. This is what she said about hers (mainly cooking for herself and FIL)
Ah yes, explaining to a room of 18 year olds the relative patterns of testis size v body size across apes... always the most fraught part of the academic year!
This is a good analogy. Very useful in carefully controlled settings for specific usages, but unfortunately being widely inserted into everything and used without training or PPE and poisoning a lot of things and people and we’re going to pay a tonne of money to remove it safely in the future
Finally got round to listening to the full @cognitations.bsky.social interview with @manvir.bsky.social and what a great episode it is. I use the Singh & Glowacki paper on diversity in pre-agricultural cultures in my teaching, and really enjoyed this elaboration of the core ideas/history.
I had an absolutely wonderful time chatting with Tanay and Jay about how our understandings of attraction and mate choice have evolved (hah!) over the last 30 years, and pitching my argument that visual experience is central to our ideas of beauty.
Thanks so much @cognitations.bsky.social
Oh wow, he is *adorable *!
(More seriously: I am not *at all* a dog person but that looks like a dog I could be friends with and the pic actually did give me a smile in the midst of the global doom and gloom.)
'One of these is not like the other...'
😆❤️
Mike is that a chatbot query/response?
Earlier this week, I shared my ongoing research at the Autism Research (ARCH) seminar series at KCL, exploring how autistic people use their strengths to manage differences.
If you’d like to catch up or revisit the talk, you can watch the recording here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Who decides which proposals to accept?