EAGER: Developing Measures of Cultural Variation and Change in the Faroe Islands

Richard McElreath博士(加州大学戴维斯分校)将利用这一早期探索性研究概念补助金在法罗群岛进行初步研究，以完善具体情况下的文化多样性衡量标准。需要这些措施来描述变异模式，以检验人类如何学习和适应新条件所依据的不同文化动态理论模型。法罗群岛是文化多样化的自然实验。法罗人在种族上是同种的，但在内部是不同的，在村庄和岛屿之间都表现出多样性。除了个人社交网络外，在个人层面上对这种多样性进行准确采样，将允许测试不同的文化进程动态模型。在本项目中抽样的变异探索性领域包括方言、政治信仰、生态信仰和与健康相关的信仰。在两个多月的实地调研中，研究人员将对访谈和方言录音进行初步采样、翻译和验证。初始样本将允许估计变异量，这将有助于确定以后更大的抽样策略。此外，还将收集个人两度社交网络，以表征每个线人的直接社会影响。方言变异将以元音共振峰为特征。无论是在法罗群岛还是在其他地方，文化多样性的动态在一定程度上取决于个人如何学习和社会结构如何。学习策略影响新信息和信念的获得，影响人们从谁那里学习，以及社会和个人经验如何相互作用。在小范围内，社会结构影响着呈现给每个人的行为的多样性，而在大范围内，它影响着不同地方文化之间的融合率。将不同类型的学习和社会结构结合在一起的理论可以产生广泛的文化动力。要使这些模型具有经验性，需要估计不同学习偏差和人口统计比率的强弱。这项研究将有助于广泛相关的理论，展示如何将其应用于特定的人种学背景。

Dr. Richard Mcelreath (University of California - Davis) will use this Early Concept Grant for Exploratory Research to conduct preliminary research in the Faroe Islands to refine context-specific measures of cultural diversity. These measures are needed in order to describe patterns of variation to test different theoretical models of cultural dynamics underlying how human beings learn and adapt to new conditions. The Faroe Islands present a natural experiment in cultural diversification. The people of the Faroe are ethnically homogenous but internally diverse, exhibiting variation among both villages and islands. Accurately sampling this diversity at the individual level, in addition to individual social networks, will allow for the testing of different dynamic models of cultural processes. Exploratory domains of variation to be sampled on this project include dialect, political beliefs, ecological beliefs, and health-relevant beliefs. Over two months of field research, the researcher will conduct initial sampling, translation, and validation of interview and dialect recording. The initial samples will allow estimation of amounts of variation, which will help determine later larger sampling strategies. In addition, individual two-degree social networks will be collected, to characterize the immediate social influences of each informant. Dialect variation will be characterized with vowel formants. Whether in the Faroe Islands or elsewhere, the dynamics of cultural diversity depend in part on how individuals learn and how society is structured. Learning strategies influence the acquisition of new information and beliefs, biasing from whom people learn and how social and individual experience interact. Social structure, at the small scale, influences the diversity of behavior that is presented to each individual, and, at the large scale, it influences rates of mixing among diverse local cultures. Theories that combine different kinds of learning and social structure can produce a wide array of cultural dynamics. Making these models empirically relevant requires estimates of the strengths of different learning biases and demographic rates. This research will contribute to a broadly relevant body of theory, showing how it can be applied to specific ethnographic contexts.