Research Interests
Lawrence S. Sugiyama (B.A., 1985, M.A., 1991, Ph.D., 1996, UC-Santa Barbara) is Associate Professor of Anthropology, and Cognitive and Decision Sciences. Larry is an evolutionary psychologist and human behavioral ecologist who works at the intersection of cultural and physical anthropology, evolutionary biology, and cognitive psychology, asking questions about the nature and evolution of the human mind and the effects of this evolution upon behavior and culture.
Since 1993, Dr. Sugiyama has conducted fieldwork among the Shiwiar, Achuar, Shuar and Zaparo forager-horticulturalist groups of Ecuadorian Amazonia. Previously he worked with the Yora of Peru and the Yanomamö of Venezuela. He is Director of the U.O. Anthropology Department Evolution, Ecology and Adaptation Lab, Research Director for the Shuar Life History Project, and Co-Director (with Clark Barrett) of Field Research for the Human Universals Project at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also a faculty member in the U.O. Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences (ICDS) where he has served on both the Executive and Speakers Committees.
Some of Larry’s recent publications on cooperation, apparent altruism, health risk, life history, and evolution of attractiveness assessment have appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Human Nature, Evolution and Human Behavior, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Research in Economic Anthropology and the Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. For more on some of Larry's recent research findings, click on the Center for Evolutionary Psychology, and Institute for Cognitive and Decision Sciences links above, or click on the publications links below.
Contact Info
sugiyama@uoregon.edu
Telephone: (541) 346-5142
329 Condon Hall
1218 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
Grad Students
Aaron Blackwell Shayna Rohwer George PryorLinks
Ecology, Evolution and Adaptation at the University of Oregon
University of Oregon Department of Anthropology
The Shuar Life History Project
Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences (ICDS)
Human Behavior and Evolution Society
Center For Evolutionary Psychology
Gallery
Click to view picture
Sugiyama with Short-eared Dog (Atelocynus microtis) killed by Yora hunters, Putaya Peru. The short-eared dog (whúkwawa in Yora) is exceedingly rare. There are no firsthand published reports of sightings (Emmons 1990).
Photo: Chacon 1990
Sugiyama mapping the location of a Yanomamö Shabono with GPS.
Photo: Chacon 1991
Weighing Tapir. Photo: Mader 1998
Participant Observation amongst the Yora. Photo: Chacon 1990
Dishpopidiba: Yora man whose prolonged disability stimulated my research on health risk. Photo: Sugiyama 1990
Blowgun (uum) hunting amongst the Shiwiar. Photo: Sugiyama 1995
Shiwiar Fieldsite. Photo: Sugiyama 1998
Publications
Recent
Sugiyama LS. 2005. Physical Attractiveness in Adaptationist Perspective. In: Buss DM. (Ed). Evolutionary Psychology Handbook. New York: Wiley. Pp. 292-343.
Sugiyama LS, Chacon R. 2005. Juvenile responses to household ecology among the Yora of Peruvian Amazonia. In: Hewlett B, Lamb M. (Eds). Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods: Evolutionary, Developmental, and Cultural Perspectives. NY: Transaction. Pp. 237-261.
Sugiyama LS. 2004. Is beauty in the context-sensitive adaptations of the beholder: Shiwiar use of waist-to-hip ratio in assessments of female mate value? Evolution and Human Behavior, 25(1) 52-63.
Sugiyama LS. 2004. Patterns of Shiwiar health insults indicate that provisioning during health crises reduces juvenile mortality. In: Alvard M. Socioeconomic Aspects of Human Behavioral Ecology: Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol 23. Elsevier. Pp. 377-400.
Sugiyama LS. 2004. Illness, Injury, and Disability among Shiwiar Forager-Horticulturalists: Implications of Health-Risk Buffering for the Evolution of Human Life History. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 123:371-389.
Sugiyama LS, Tooby J, Cosmides L. 2003. Cross-cultural evidence of cognitive adaptations for social exchange among the Shiwiar of Ecuadorian Amazonia. Reprinted in: Kenrick DT, Luce CL, editors. The functional mind: Readings in evolutionary psychology. USA: Allen & Bacon pp. 97-109.
Sugiyama LS, Sugiyama MS. 2003. Social roles, prestige and health risk: Social niche specialization as a risk buffering strategy. Human Nature, 14(2) 165-190.
Sugiyama LS, Tooby J, Cosmides L. 2002. Cross-cultural Evidence of Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange among the Shiwiar of Ecuadorian Amazonia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences99(17) 11537-11545.
Sugiyama LS, Chacon R. 2000. Effects of illness and injury on foraging among the Yora and Shiwiar: Pathology risk as adaptive problem. In: Cronk L, Chagnon NA, Irons W, editors. Human behavior and adaptation: An anthropological perspective. New York: Aldine. p 371-395.
Walker PL, Sugiyama LS, Chacon R. 1998. Diet, dental health and cultural change among recently contacted South American hunter-horticulturalists.In Lukacs J, Hemphill BE, editors. Human dental development, morphology and pathology: Essays in honor of Albert Dahlberg. Eugene Oregon: University of Oregon Anthropological Papers. p 355-386.
Sugiyama LS, Sugiyama MS. (Accepted) Foragers fitness and formal variation: Where's the adaptation in adaptationist archaeology? Human Nature.
Sugiyama LS. (Accepted) Shiwiar Health Risk and the Evolution of Health Care Provisioning. Human Nature.
In Preparation
Shipley A, Pryor G, Harbaugh B, Sugiyama LS. Development of Socio-economic Preferences among the Shuar.
Henrickson S, Sugiyama LS. On the archaeological use of models from behavioral ecology: An example of sharing vs. storage on the Snake River Plain.
Johnson T, Sugiyama LS. Sex of perceiver does not alter perspective when cheater detection involves parental investment agreements.
Sugiyama LS, Chacon R. Effects of social ecology on Yora juvenile time allocation.
Sugiyama LS. Why do(n’t) the Shiwiar cooperatively forage?
Sugiyama LS, Chacon R. Strategic life-history tradeoffs and Yora time allocation: considerations for current debates about the evolution of human life history?
Sugiyama LS, Chacon R. Shiwiar foraging success across the lifespan: Implications for the evolution of human life history.
Scalise Sugiyama M, Sugiyama LS. State of the arts: missing links in evolutionary explanations of art behavior.
Sugiyama LS, Guatelli-Steinberg D, Burns KL, Rohwer S. 2d/4d ratio, developmental stability, and individual differences in female mating strategy.
Book Projects
Sugiyama LS, Barrett C, Tooby J, editors. The adapted mind in cultural context: Evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology among the Shiwiar, Shuar, and Achuar. Book proposal for, Evolutionary Foundations of Human Behavior Series: University of California Press.
Sugiyama LS. In sickness and in health: Injury, illness, and the evolution of human social behavior.