Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Who's at stake? Nonhuman agency concepts and cultural resource conflict among Indigenous and Western actors in Panama

这项研究涉及认知科学和决策制定的一个基本问题：在人与环境的相互作用中，文化资源冲突的利害关系是什么？争论中最基本的概念之一涉及环境困境中谁或什么处于危险之中。理解人类的环境行为需要理解他们是如何与其他生命形式联系起来的，作为值得道德考虑的有意识的主体。这项跨学科研究调查了生活在共同生态系统中的两个社区的非人类代理概念如何与环境认知和决策制定相互关联：巴拿马博卡斯德尔托罗的土著Ngöbe和主流（拉迪诺人，欧美人）参与者（也包括与标准美国样本的选择比较）。研究采用认知和心理学方法，针对非人类代理概念中的文化差异以及有关道德圈和生态因果关系的相关推理进行关键预测。据预测，认知上的文化差异将导致个人以非常不同的方式处理环境决策：要么作为生态问题，将人类定位为环境的使用者和保护者，要么作为社会问题，将人类和非人类都定位为共享社区的有意利益相关者。本论文的研究将通过对涉及跨文化自然推理的概念框架的新颖分析来推进认知理论，并提供对生态思想的道德和因果维度的洞察。这项工作的一个明显优势是它关注土著社区代表性不足的观点，有助于社会科学研究人群的多样性，并为环境问题提供独特的有利位置。通过记录文化概念和价值观如何影响对环境权衡的看法，本研究揭示了土著和主流群体之间的文化资源冲突（和合作）。更广泛地说，研究结果将加深对环境决策背后的文化和认知因素的认识，讨论人与环境相互作用决策科学中的核心问题。

This research engages a fundamental question for cognitive science and decision making: what is at stake in cultural resource conflict over human-environment interactions? One of the most fundamental concepts under debate involves what-or-who is at stake in environmental dilemmas. Understanding people's environmental behavior requires understanding how they relate to other life forms as intentional agents worthy of moral consideration. This interdisciplinary research investigates how concepts of nonhuman agency interrelate with environmental cognition and decision making across two communities living in a shared ecosystem: Indigenous Ngöbe and mainstream (Ladino, Euro-American) actors in Bocas del Toro, Panama (also including selected comparisons to standard U.S. samples). Studies employ cognitive and psychological methods to target key predictions concerning cultural variation in nonhuman agency concepts, and associated reasoning about moral circles and ecological causation. It is predicted that cultural differences in cognition will lead individuals to approach environmental decision making in very different ways: either as an ecological question that positions humans as users and protectors of the environment, or as a social question that positions both humans and nonhumans as intentional stakeholders in shared community.This dissertation research will advance cognitive theory by offering a novel analysis of the conceptual frameworks involved in reasoning about nature across cultures, providing insight into the moral and causal dimensions of ecological thought. A distinct advantage of this work is its focus on under-represented perspectives of indigenous communities, contributing to the diversity of social science study populations and offering a unique vantage point on environmental questions. By documenting how cultural concepts and values impact perceptions of environmental tradeoffs, this research sheds light on cultural resource conflict (and cooperation) between indigenous and mainstream groups. More broadly, the results will deepen knowledge about the cultural and cognitive factors underlying environmental decision making, speaking to core issues in the decision science of human-environment interactions.