M K Shenk

Datos Biográficos

ID7927
NOMBREM K Shenk
NOMBRESM K
APELLIDOShenk
FIRMASHENK M K
AFILIACIONESPennsylvania State University
ORCID0000-0003-2002-1469
VERIFICADOSí
TOTAL DE OBRAS57
TOTAL DE CITAS269
TOTAL COMO AUTOR57
TOTAL COMO EDITOR0
PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN2005
AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN2026
ÍNDICE H8

  • Perspectives and behaviors surrounding planting practices in North America inform genetic conservation realities for American ginseng ( Panax quinquefolius )

    Open AccessRachel E Palkovitz, M K Shenk et al.ARTICLEPLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET2026

    Societal Impact Statement American ginseng is a shade‐obligate, North American medicinal plant that is widely traded and used internationally. To meet global demand, ginseng is cultivated in forest farms in the Appalachian region of the USA and field‐based artificial shade farms in two regions: Ontario, Canada, and Wisconsin, USA. We conducted social research leveraging in‐depth interviews with growers to inform wild population genetics and futur…

  • Social capital is associated with both risk-taking and risk-avoidance in rural Bangladesh

    Open AccessJoon Hwang, Nurul Alam et al.ARTICLEEvolution and Human Behavior2026

    Throughout human evolutionary history, individuals have faced two fundamental challenges under uncertainty: deciding whether to take risks and managing risks through cooperation. While both risk-taking and social risk management have been widely studied, less attention has been given to how these two processes are linked—specifically, how risk-taking itself may be shaped by social networks. We test the “social capital buffer” hypothesis, which po…

  • Reciprocal exchanges across multilayered networks show an emerging patron-client system led by salaried households

    Open AccessJoon Ho Hwang, Joon Hwang et al.ARTICLEEvolutionary Human Sciences2026

    Evolutionary models of social inequality suggest that status differentiation can emerge within cooperative networks through sustained asymmetric exchanges between high- and low-value resources, giving rise to patron-client relationships. From a network perspective, such asymmetric relationships take the form of multilayered reciprocity, where different types of resources are exchanged across domains. By analyzing multilayered support networks in …

  • Nutrition and Handgrip Strength Among Adults in Rural Matlab, Bangladesh

    Open AccessGauri Naik, Victoria Durney et al.ARTICLEAmerican Journal of Human Biology2026

    OBJECTIVE: Handgrip strength (HGS) provides a dynamic indicator of overall strength and physical fitness. Population-based investigations of anemia and iron deficiency as predictors of HGS are limited; most studies rely on elderly and/or clinical samples. We assessed iron deficiency, anemia, body mass index (BMI), and body fat percentage as predictors of HGS among a representative cross-sectional sample of adult residents of Matlab, Bangladesh. M…

  • Inverse Association Between Betel Quid Use and Diabetes in Rural Bangladesh

    Open AccessKristin K Sznajder, M K Shenk et al.ARTICLEAmerican Journal of Human Biology2026

    These models support the hypothesis that betel quid use could decrease, rather than increase, risk for diabetes in the Bangladeshi context, particularly among men (who have more frequent betel quid use than women). Heterogeneity in betel quid preparation across settings, multifactorial effects of betel quid use, and publication bias may contribute to differences between these findings and other observational studies

  • Maternal religiosity and social support to mothers

    Radim Chvaja, Laure Spake et al.ARTICLEReligion Brain & Behavior2026Referencias: 102

    Data and statistical script: The statistical script associated with this study is made public https://osf.io/6mpbe/. However, since the data we use in this study are part of larger project and will be made public in a future, we cannot currently share the raw dataset. Therefore, we provide access to the processed dataset prepared for analyses. Reader may go through the full script or skip the data curation part directly to load prepared dataset a…

  • Religious parents receive more alloparental aid in rural Bangladesh

    Open AccessTheodore Samore, Richard Sosis et al.ARTICLEEvolutionary Human Sciences2026

    Researchers have long speculated about the evolutionary benefits of religiosity. One explanation for the evolution of religious ritual is that rituals signal commitment to co-religionists. As a major domain of prosocial behaviour, alloparental care – or care directed at children by non-parents – is a plausible benefit of religious signalling. The religious alloparenting hypothesis posits that parents who signal religious commitment receive greate…

  • Mortality perceptions in the context of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis

    Open AccessJoseph G Guerriero, M K Shenk et al.ARTICLEEvolution and Human Behavior2026Referencias: 55

  • The Developmental Origins of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

    Open AccessMakenna B Lenover Moyer, Krishangi Jasani et al.ARTICLEAmerican Journal of Human Biology2025

  • Life Course Timing of Mortality Exposure and Fertility Behavior

    Open AccessL Newmyer, Lisa Mcallister et al.ARTICLEPopulation Research and Policy…2025Referencias: 44

    Mortality and fertility are important, intricately linked drivers of population change. Although past demographic research has focused largely on population-level mortality rates, individual-level mortality experiences can also shape fertility. The timing of mortality exposure over the life course might distinctly shape individual-level fertility behavior, with some time periods being more sensitive than others. Using detailed data from a sample …

  • Nuclearization of maternal support networks in the UK and the US during the Covid-19 pandemic

    Open AccessAnushé Hassan, L Spake et al.ARTICLESocial Sciences & Humanities Open2024

    The social isolation resulting from governments' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic likely limited support available to mothers. Evidence suggests tasks like childcare and domestic work fell disproportionately on mothers during the pandemic, with consequences for their wellbeing. We explore how the pandemic affected emotional and practical support available to mothers between March and August 2020 and whether changes in support are associated wit…

  • Religious women receive more allomaternal support from non-partner kin in two low-fertility countries

    Open AccessL Spake, B Schaffnit et al.ARTICLEEvolution and Human Behavior2024

  • Cost structures and socioecological conditions impact the fitness outcomes of human alloparental care in agent-based model simulations

    Open AccessElic M Weitzel, Kathleen M Wilson et al.ARTICLEEvolution and Human Behavior2024

  • Religious Involvement Is Associated With Higher Fertility and Lower Maternal Investment, but More Alloparental Support Among Gambian Mothers

    Open AccessJohn H Shaver, Radim Chvaja et al.ARTICLEAmerican Journal of Human Biology2024

    OBJECTIVES: Human childrearing is cooperative, with women often able to achieve relatively high fertility through help from many individuals. Previous work has documented tremendous socioecological variation in who supports women in childrearing, but less is known about the intracultural correlates of variation in allomaternal support. In the highly religious, high-fertility setting of The Gambia, we studied whether religious mothers have more ch…

  • Evolutionary medicine approaches to chronic disease

    Open AccessMakenna B Lenover Moyer, M K ShenkARTICLEEvolutionary Anthropology Issues…2024

    Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a gastrointestinal disease, is a global phenomenon correlated with industrialization. We propose that an evolutionary medicine approach is useful to understand this disease from an ultimate perspective and conducted a scoping literature review to synthesize the IBS literature within this framework. Our review suggests five potential evolutionary hypotheses for the cause of IBS, including (a) a dietary mismatch acco…

  • Intensive Kinship, Development, and Demography

    Open AccessM K Shenk, Saman Naz et al.ARTICLEPopulation and Development Review2024Citada por: 2Referencias: 90

    Pakistan has the highest rates of consanguinity in the world, with nearly two-thirds marrying cousins. To understand this pattern, we adopt the theoretical framework of intensive and extensive kinship that allows us to predict correlates of consanguineous marriages and logically connect patterns in Pakistan with those in other regions. Using data from the Punjab Consanguinity Survey, we examine indicators of economic development, fertility, cultu…

  • Betel quid use is associated with anemia among both men and women in Matlab, Bangladesh

    Open AccessKristin K Sznajder, M K Shenk et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2023

    Anemia accounts for 8.8% of total disability burden worldwide. Betel quid use among pregnant women has been found to increase anemia risk. Betel quid is prepared by wrapping the betel (or areca) nut, with spices and other additions, in betel or tobacco leaf and it is chewed or placed in the mouth. We explored the association between betel quid use and anemia among men and non-pregnant women. We collected data from a random sample of women and the…

  • Responsibility, social aspirations, and contemporary low fertility

    Kakoli Das, Saswata Ghosh et al.ARTICLEAsian Population Studies2023Referencias: 1

    West Bengal, a middle-ranking Indian state in terms of development indicators with more than two-thirds rural population, is on the verge of becoming a lowest low fertility zone. While the rural TFR (Total Fertility Rate) of West Bengal (1.6 births/woman) is on par with many developed countries (Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, etc.), its developmental stage is not—which poses a paradox. Using data from a primary survey of 405 mothers aged …

  • Fertility and faith

    Robert Lynch, M K Shenk et al.ARTICLEReligion Brain & Behavior2022

    Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by John Templeton Foundation [Grant number grant ID 61426]

  • Disentangling the relationships between religion and fertility

    L Spake, Anushé Hassan et al.ARTICLEReligion Brain & Behavior2022

    In this issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior, scholars from multiple disciplines offer comments on Jenkins ' Fertility and Faith (Jenkins, 2020).The debate, and Jenkins' response to the commentaries, contribute to moving scholarship forward in an often-neglected area in the scientific study of religion.The book tackles an extensive literature, synthesizing work on several topics: drivers of secularization, drivers of fertility decline, the relatio…

  • Faith and fertility in evolutionary perspective

    John H Shaver, L Spake et al.ARTICLEReligion Brain & Behavior2022

  • Dowry Inflation

    Open AccessJ L Smith, Jane Lankes et al.ARTICLEPopulation Research and Policy…2022Referencias: 46

  • The impact of market integration on arranged marriages in Matlab, Bangladesh

    Open AccessB Schaffnit, A E Page et al.ARTICLEEvolutionary Human Sciences2022Citada por: 3Referencias: 13

    Success in marriage markets has lasting impacts on women's wellbeing. By arranging marriages, parents exert financial and social powers to influence spouse characteristics and ensure optimal marriages. While arranging marriages is a major focus of parental investment, marriage decisions are also a source of conflict between parents and daughters in which parents often have more power. The process of market integration may alter parental investmen…

  • Market integration, income inequality, and kinship system among the Mosuo of China

    Open AccessM Mattison, Neil G Maclaren et al.ARTICLEEvolutionary Human Sciences2022Citada por: 7Referencias: 31

    Increased access to defensible material wealth is hypothesised to escalate inequality. Market integration, which creates novel opportunities in cash economies, provides a means of testing this hypothesis. Using demographic data collected from 505 households among the matrilineal and patrilineal Mosuo in 2017, we test whether market integration is associated with increased material wealth, whether increased material wealth is associated with wealt…

  • Rewriting the book on human female sexuality

    M K ShenkReferencias: 1

    Rewriting the book on human female sexuality: New thinking on old questions" published on 01 Jun 2009 by Akadémiai Kiadó, co-published with Springer Science+Business Media B.V., Formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V