Larry Monocello
  • Assistant Professor
  • Document: CV
Research Areas
  • Cultural Anthropology

Courses Taught

  • ANTH 435 - Medical Anthropology

Research Interests

  • Health and wellbeing
  • Psychological/psychiatric anthropology
  • Cognitive anthropology
  • Cultural models
  • Cultural consonance
  • Body image
  • Male body image
  • Eating disorders
  • Embodiment
  • Masculinity/masculinities
  • Research methods
  • South Korea

Educational Background

  • PhD, University of Alabama, 2022
  • Postdoc, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry (2022-2025)

Selected Publications

  • Male Body Image and Eating Disorders in South Korea

    Monocello, Lawrence T. 2024. “Masculinities, Muscularities, and Eating Disorders among Young Men in South Korea.” In Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, by Adrienne E. Strong and Richard Powis, 8th ed., 106–28. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003398349-11.

    Monocello, Lawrence T., Jason M. Lavender, Lauren A. Fowler, Ellen E. Fitzsimmons‐Craft, and Denise E. Wilfley. 2024. “A Cultural Models Approach to Understanding Body Fatness Perceptions and Disordered Eating in Young South Korean Men.” International Journal of Eating Disorders 57 (10): 2074–87. doi:10.1002/eat.24200.

    Monocello, Lawrence T. 2023. “‘Guys with Big Muscles Have Misplaced Priorities’: Masculinities and Muscularities in Young South Korean Men’s Body Image.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 47 (2): 443–65. doi:10.1007/s11013-022-09784-3.

    Monocello, Lawrence T., and William W. Dressler. 2022. “Cultural Consonance, Body Image, and Disordered Eating among Young South Korean Men.” Social Science & Medicine 314 (December 2022): 115486. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115486.

    Monocello, Lawrence T. 2022. “Culture beyond Categories: Examining Intercultural Variation in South Koreans’ and Americans’ Attention to Men’s Bodily Features.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 25 (3): 556–70. doi:10.1111/ajsp.12518.

    Monocello, Lawrence T. 2020. “Cultural Models of Male Body Image, Fat, and Acceptable Personhood among Euro-Americans and South Koreans.” Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science 4 (1): 73–86. doi:10.1007/s41809-019-00042-4.

    Monocello, Lawrence T., and William W. Dressler. 2020. “Flower Boys and Muscled Men: Comparing South Korean and American Male Body Ideals Using Cultural Domain Analysis.” Anthropology & Medicine 27 (2): 176–91. doi:10.1080/13648470.2020.1742575.

    Cognitive Anthropology and Cultural Consonance Theory

    Monocello, Lawrence T. 2025. “The Cultural Consonance Space: Multiplicities and Enactments of Male Body Ideals in South Korea.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 49 (1): 328–51. doi:10.1007/s11013-024-09885-1.

    Monocello, Lawrence T., Nicole L. Henderson, and Liqin Xia. 2024. “Re-Cognizing Anthropological Methods: Toward a Decolonizing Cognitive Anthropology.” In Innovations in Psychological Anthropology, edited by Rebecca J. Lester, 1st ed., 27–42. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003311713-3.

    Henderson, Nicole L., Lawrence T. Monocello, Robert J. Else, and William W. Dressler. 2022. “Modeling Culture: A Framework.” Ethos 50 (2): 111–30. doi:10.1111/etho.12348.

    Treatment of Eating Disorders, Weight Management, and Weight Stigma

    Howe, Carli P., Seung Yeon Baik, Laura D’Adamo, Mia Kouveliotes, Zhaoyi Pan, Lawrence Monocello, Marie‐Laure Firebaugh, et al. 2025. “Examining Prevalence and Presentations of Eating Disorders Across Racial/Ethnic Groups in a National, Population‐Based Sample of College Students.” International Journal of Eating Disorders, no. Advanced Online Publication. Wiley. doi:10.1002/eat.24427.

    D’Adamo, Laura, Abigail T. Shonrock, Lawrence Monocello, Jake Goldberg, Lauren H. Yaeger, Rebecca L. Pearl, and Denise E. Wilfley. 2024. “Psychological Interventions for Internalized Weight Stigma: A Systematic Scoping Review of Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Efficacy.” Journal of Eating Disorders 12 (1): 197. doi:10.1186/s40337-024-01132-7.

    Davison, Genevieve M., Lawrence T. Monocello, Kim Lipsey, and Denise E. Wilfley. 2023. “Evidence Base Update on Behavioral Treatments for Overweight and Obesity in Children and Adolescents.” Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, no. Advanced Online Publication (September): 1–15. doi:10.1080/15374416.2023.2251164.

    Rackoff, Gavin N., Lawrence T. Monocello, Lauren A. Fowler, Melissa M. Vázquez, Jillian Shah, Ellen E. Fitzsimmons-Craft, C. Barr Taylor, Daniel Eisenberg, Denise E. Wilfley, and Michelle G. Newman. 2023. “Using Social Influence Strategies to Improve Rates of Online Mental Health Survey Participation: Results from Two Experiments.” Journal of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, May. doi:10.1016/j.jbct.2023.05.001.

Current Research Projects

I’m a medical, psychological, and cognitive anthropologist specializing in transdisciplinary research on the connections between structural, cultural, and individual contributors to health outcomes based on cultural models. Cultural models are mental schemas about things in the world, shared between members of a society. Particularly, my research focuses on cultural consonance theory: the extent to which individuals can approximate locally valued cultural models in their own lives has dramatic effects on health outcomes.

My current research focuses on how young Korean men (1) understand and relate to male body ideals, (2) how and why they pursue these body ideals in their own lives, and (3) the effects on their physical and mental health, especially related to eating disorders. Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses, have high degrees of comorbidity with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, and high levels of suicidality. However, research is limited among men and people from non-Western cultures, and research measures, screens, and treatment approaches systematically underestimate and exclude these groups, despite them having comparable levels of psychopathology and rapidly converging prevalence rates.

Korean male body ideals appear to differ from Western models, as can be seen in male K-pop idols and, especially, male K-drama leads. They also involve different models of masculinity, embedded in social, political, and economic structures particular to South Korea, that create different constellations of risks, vulnerabilities, barriers, and also facilitators to well-being. My research uses cultural consonance theory to explore how Korean men’s ways of thinking about men’s body ideals in their own words, how they might be different from Western models, where current measures might not account for important locally salient risk factors, and how research and treatment practices can be adapted to account for cross-cultural variation. These methods can be applied in different cultural groups as well, and is an important direction for future research.

I also am a contributor or co-investigator to several NIH- and CDC-funded hybrid implementation-effectiveness studies related to delivering interventions for weight stigma, weight management, and eating disorders through multisector partnerships, evidence-based dissemination and implementation strategies, and novel applications of technologies like chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI). My role on these grants is to identify gaps in accessibility and acceptability of these interventions and use systematic community-engaged anthropological mixed-methods to strategize solutions to improve care and its delivery to the groups who need it most in a way acceptable to their members.

I will be establishing a lab in the Fall of 2025 to provide graduate, undergraduate, and community members hands-on research experience leveraging anthropological methods to develop and implement solutions to health-related issues through local, statewide, national, and international transdisciplinary collaborations. Lab members will gain experience in literature reviews; qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods; research ethics; developing multisector partnerships; grant-writing for governmental and non-governmental funding; academic writing; peer review; and publication. These skills are highly translatable across disciplines and careers beyond anthropology, including medicine, law, public health, and tech.

I welcome inquiries from potential graduate students interested in research topics related to: mental health and illness (especially but not limited to body image and eating disorders), cultural models and cultural consonance, applied anthropology, research methods, and South Korea/East Asia. I will consider graduate students interested in other cultural areas if there is convergence in topical interests and we can identify other faculty (departmental or university) with appropriate culture area expertise.