Marida Hollos

My overarching research interest is in the influence of the social and cultural environment on human development. Over the years, this interest led me to look at this dual process - internal psychological functioning and its cultural context - in a number of ways and in a number of places. The psychological processes I investigated include cognitive and linguistic development, social and moral development, the self in its cultural context, and adolescent identity formation. The focus on the social and cultural context most recently led me to examine those demographic processes which affect children's welfare and behavior. Specifically, I am looking at the manner in which fertility outcomes (the number of children a mother has) influence the context in which children grow up. One of the issues that I am examining is the concept of children in various cultural contexts and how this influences the way people treat children.

In addition to the issues related to children, I am also interested in demographic processes, primarily fertility and marriage, that impact on women. For the past two decades my research has increasingly focused on the relationship between the status of women and fertility. I am currently examining how the power relationship between husbands and wives within marriage influences their communication about their desires to have more children and how this in turn determines their adoption of contraception.

I have done work on these subjects in Eastern Europe (Hungary), East Africa (Tanzania) and West Africa (Nigeria).I have recently completed a book on a community in Hungary where I look at the town's history through the stories of several generations of three families, entitled Scandal in a Small Town. My most current research projects include: the examination of the lives of infertile women – their difficulties and coping mechanisms – in a Nigerian community; and a study of the conceptualization of children by families of different social groups in post-socialist Hungary.

My teaching in the Anthropology Department is divided between my interests in psychological processes and in issues related to population, more specifically to issues of reproduction. I am a member of the Center for the Study of Human Development and of the Population Studies and Training Center.