SelectedWorks - Kristin Snopkowski

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Selected Works of Kristin Snopkowski

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Dr. Kristin Snopkowski is an Assistant Professor for the Department of Anthropology at Boise State University. Her research focus includes human behavioral ecology, evolutionary demography, and fertility transition. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico and a B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University. Dr. Snopkowski is a peer reviewer for a number of journals including Evolution and Human Behavior and PLOS ONE, and has been a blog contributor for OpenPop.org which is a collaborative blog that discusses population matters.

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About Kristin Snopkowski

Dr. Kristin Snopkowski is an Assistant Professor for the Department of Anthropology at Boise State University. Her research focus includes human behavioral ecology, evolutionary demography, and fertility transition. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico and a B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University. Dr. Snopkowski is a peer reviewer for a number of journals including Evolution and Human Behavior and PLOS ONE, and has been a blog contributor for OpenPop.org which is a collaborative blog that discusses population matters.

Present	Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Boise State University ‐ Department of Anthropology
Institution Organization Position Type Position Title Time Period to Options Current Position Affiliate my profile with this Institution

Human Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Demography

2020 - Excellence in Graduate Mentoring Award, Boise State University Graduate College

ANTH 497-001 Special Topics: Human Behavioral Ecology
ANTH 502-001 Human Evolution History & Development

Articles (16)

The Association of Sex Ratio on Suicide Rates in United States Counties: An Exploration of Mechanisms (Kristin Snopkowski and Hallie Turner) Social Sciences (2023)

Researchers have long puzzled over suicidal behavior. In this paper, we posit that when people are unable to attract mates given unfavorable sex ratios, suicide rates increase. Sex ratio, the proportion of males in a ...

Behavioral Ecology of the Family: Harnessing Theory to Better Understand Variation in Human Families (Paula Sheppard and Kristin Snopkowski) Social Sciences (2021)

Researchers across the social sciences have long been interested in families. How people make decisions such as who to marry, when to have a baby, how big or small a family to have, or whether ...

Fertility Intentions and Outcomes in Indonesia: Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Conflict (Kristin Snopkowski and James Joseph Nelson) Evolutionary Human Sciences (2021)

Differential fertility preferences for men and women may provide insights into human sexual conflict. We explore whether pairbonded couples have different preferences for future offspring, which socioecological factors are associated with these preferences, and who ...

Life-History Factors Influence Teenagers’ Suicidal Ideation: A Model Selection Analysis of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (John P. Ziker and Kristin Snopkowski) Evolutionary Psychology (2020)

Suicidality is an important contributor to disease burden worldwide. We examine the developmental and environmental correlates of reported suicidal ideation at age 15 and develop a new evolutionary model of suicidality based on life history ...

Sexual Initiation Among Canadian Youth: A Model Comparison Approach of Evolutionary Hypotheses Shows Greatest Support for Extrinsic Mortality Cues, Intergenerational Conflict, and Early Life Psychosocial Stressors (Kristin Snopkowski and John P. Ziker) Evolution and Human Behavior (2020)

Early life factors are associated with the timing of reproductive events in adolescence, but a variety of hypotheses (such as psychosocial acceleration theory, paternal investment theory, extrinsic mortality, internal prediction, and intergenerational conflict) propose different ...

Small Group Learning is Associated with Reduced Salivary Cortisol and Testosterone in Undergraduate Students (Kristin Snopkowski, Kathryn Demps, Ross Griffiths, et al.) Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2019)

Small group learning activities have been shown to improve student academic performance and educational outcomes. Yet, we have an imperfect understanding of the mechanisms by which this occurs. Group learning may mediate student stress by ...

Variation in Wealth and Educational Drivers of Fertility Decline Across 45 Countries (Heidi Colleran and Kristin Snopkowski) Population Ecology (2018)

Fertility decline in human populations is an inherent evolutionary puzzle with major demographic, socio-cultural and evolutionary consequences. The individual level predictors of fertility decline are numerous, but the way these effects vary by country and ...

Marital Dissolution and Child Educational Outcomes in San Borja, Bolivia (Kristin Snopkowski) Human Nature (2016)

Purpose: Serial monogamy is likely an adaptive mating strategy for women when the expected future fitness gains with a different partner are greater than expected future fitness with one’s current partner. Methods: Using interview data ...

Pathways from Education to Fertility Decline: A Multi-Site Comparative Study (Kristin Snopkowski, Mary C. Towner, Mary K. Shenk, et al.) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2016)

Women’s education has emerged as a central predictor of fertility decline, but the multiple possible mechanisms by which education can affect fertility have not been subject to detailed comparative investigation across multiple sites. In this ...

What Do Men Want? Re-Examining Whether Men Benefit from Higher Fertility Than Is Optimal for Women (Cristina Moya, Kristin Snopkowski and Rebecca Sear) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2016)

Several empirical observations suggest that when women have more autonomy over their reproductive decisions, fertility is lower. Some evolutionary theorists have interpreted this as evidence for sexual conflicts of interest, arguing that higher fertility is ...

Does Grandparental Help Mediate the Relationship Between Kin Presence and Fertility? (Kristin Snopkowski and Rebecca Sear) Demographic Research (2016)

BACKGROUND Previous research suggests that kin availability may be correlated with reproductive outcomes, but it is not clear that a causal relationship underlies these findings. Further, there is substantial variation in how kin availability is ...

Grandparental Help in Indonesia Is Directed Preferentially Towards Needier Descendants: A Potential Confounder When Exploring Grandparental Influences on Child Health (Kristin Snopkowski and Rebecca Sear) Social Science & Medicine (2015)

A considerable body of evidence has now demonstrated positive correlations between grandparental presence and child health outcomes. It is typically assumed that such correlations exist because grandparental investment in their grandchildren improves child health and ...

A Test of the Intergenerational Conflict Model in Indonesia Shows No Evidence of Earlier Menopause in Female-Dispersing Groups (Kristin Snopkowski, Cristina Moya and Rebecca Sear) Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2014)

Menopause remains an evolutionary puzzle, as humans are unique among primates in having a long post-fertile lifespan. One model proposes that intergenerational conflict in patrilocal populations favours female reproductive cessation. This model predicts that women ...

A Synthetic Biosocial Model of Fertility Transition: Testing the Relative Contribution of Embodied Capital Theory, Changing Cultural Norms, and Women's Labor Force Participation (Kristin Snopkowski and Hillard Kaplan) American Journal of Physical Anthropology (2014)

This article presents a biosocial model of fertility decline, which integrates ecological-economic and informational-cultural hypotheses of fertility transition in a unified theoretical framework. The model is then applied to empirical data collected among 500 women ...

Father Absence and Reproduction-Related Outcomes in Malaysia, a Transitional Fertility Population (Paula Sheppard, Kristin Snopkowski and Rebecca Sear) Human Nature (2014)

Father absence is consistently associated with children’s reproductive outcomes in industrialized countries. It has been suggested that father absence acts as a cue to particular environmental conditions that influence life history strategies. Much less is ...

Kin Influences on Fertility in Thailand: Effects and Mechanisms (Kristin Snopkowski and Rebecca Sear) Evolution and Human Behavior (2013)

It has been suggested that human mothers are cooperative breeders, as they need help from others to successfully raise offspring. Studies working under this framework have found correlations between the presence of kin and both ...

The Behavioral Ecology of the Family (Paula Sheppard and Kristin Snopkowski) (2021)

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue The Behavioral Ecology of the Family that was published in Social Sciences

Reproductive Decision-Making in Transitional Contexts (Kristin Snopkowski) UCLA’s Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture Lecture Series (2015)

Over the past two hundred years, most societies around the world have experienced fertility transitions, defined as a dramatic decline in reproductive rates through time. The conscious decision to reduce fertility to very low levels ...

Intergenerational Conflict: Does Ethnic-Group Postnuptial Residence Predict Age at Menopause? (Kristin Snopkowski, Cristina Moya and Rebecca Sear) Cooperation and Conflict in the Family Conference (2014)

Human menopause remains an evolutionary puzzle as early termination of fertility does not seem adaptive. Cant and Johnstone (2008) proposed that intergenerational conflict in populations with female-biased dispersal can lead to the termination of fertility ...

Is the Helping Behavior of Grandparents Predicted by Need? Evidence from Indonesia (Kristin Snopkowski and Rebecca Sear) IUSSP Cyberseminar: Family Demography: Advancing Knowledge about Intergenerational Relationships and Exchanges in Low and Middle-Income Countries (2014)

Grandparental help, that provided by older individuals to adult children and grandchildren, is of theoretical interest and practical relevance, but has primarily been explored in high-income contexts. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey ...

Do Gender Ideology and Social Support Impact the Mental Health of European Mothers? (Rhyann Power, Kristin Snopkowski, Amy Josey, et al.) 2023 Undergraduate Research Showcase (2023)

Evolutionary anthropologists consider the task of raising children to be a cooperative effort in humans, where mothers can rely on a social network of kin and non-kin, called alloparents, for help. In today’s societies however, ...

Regional Effects of Demographic Transition: The Interrelationship Between Education and Wealth on Fertility Decisions (Delaney Glass and Kristin Snopkowski) Idaho Conference on Undergraduate Research

Explanations for the evolutionary puzzle of fertility decline need a varied approach, a biosocial approach utilizing both cultural transmission and economic anthropology. While many studies have been conducted on the effects of wealth on fertility ...