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Section APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY
STRESSING OUT IN TRANSITION - THE CASE OF UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS FROM ZAGREB, CROATIA
Martinovic Klaric Irena1, Peternel Lana1, Malnar Ana2
^Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia 2lnstitute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
This anthropological account explores manifestations of psychosocial stress in youth as a response to cultural changes in the transitional (postsocialist and postconflict and now the European Union) context of contemporary Croatia. For youth a successful transition to independent adulthood requires competences in dealing with various agespecific developmental tasks, each of which might represent a specific stressor. Youth maturation and social integration are even more uncertain and stressful in the transitional society that itself is undergoing drastic and multiple transformations of institutions, cultural values and norms. Analytical approaches based on the cultural consensus and cultural consonance theories are used to assess the associations of various cultural domains of everyday life to the stress outcome measurements of salivary biomarkers. Saliva is useful for population studies of psychosocial stress because it allows noninvasive collection of samples in nonclinical settings. Two salivary biomarkers of stress physiology are selected for laboratory testing: cortisol (the central hormone in the physiology of stress, a biomarker of the hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal axis) and alphaamylase (a surrogate marker of the sympathetic nervous system activity that parallels stressrelated increase in norepinephrine). The results are presented from a recent pilot study using cultural consensus and cultural consonance analyses on salivary cortisol and alpha amylase levels in the group of the upper secondary school students from Zagreb, Croatia. This pilot study illustrates the usefulness of complementing recent developments in cognitive and cultural anthropology with research in biological anthropology.
Key words: stress, salivary biomarkers, youth, cultural consensus and cultural consonance
Contact information: Martinovic Klaric Irena, e-mail: [email protected], Peternel Lana, e-mail: [email protected].
MORPHOGENETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED WOMEN
FREESTYLE WRESTLERS
Martirosova Karina
Department of biomedical support MGFSO, Moscow Sport Committee, Moscow, Russia
The fingerprint dermatoglyphics of 75 top Russian female freestyle wrestlers of three conditional weight categories (light, medium and heavy) was studied with the use of hardware-software complex "Malachite". The athletes' age ranged from 20 to 33 years. It is established that for the whole sample (irrespective of weight categories) the typical phenotypes are LW and ALW. For the wrestlers of a light weight category in 48% of cases the occurrence of the pattern arch (A) was observed and in 32% - the pattern whorl (W). There are also athletes of this weight category with the phenotype of ALW. The prevailing patterns in athletes of a middle weight category are the loop (L - 62%), the whorl (W - 24%) and a complex pattern (S - 12%). They are relating primarily to the phenotype of LW. For athletes of a heavy weight category, the typical patterns are: the loop (L-74%), the whorl (W - 14.4%) and complex pattern (S - 7.8%). The main phenotype is LW. The obtained results may be used for the selection of the most prospective athletes in women's freestyle wrestling.
Key words: morphogenetic traits, female freestyle wrestlers, fingerprint dermatoglyphics
Contact information: Martirosova Karina, e-mail: [email protected].
Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Series 23 ANTHROPOLOGIYA — 3/2014
19th Congress of the European Anthropological Association Lomonosov MSU, Moscow, Russia, 25th - 29th August, 2014
