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的一个基本问题：在人与环境相互作用的文化资源冲突中，什么是利害关系？正在辩论的最基本的概念之一涉及在环境困境中谁或什么人的利害关系。理解人们的环境行为需要理解它们与其他生命形式之间的关系，因为它们是值得道德考虑的故意代理人。这项跨学科的研究调查了非人类机构的概念如何与生活在共享生态系统中的两个社区的环境认知和决策相关：巴拿马博卡斯德尔托罗的土著Ngöbe和主流(Ladino，欧美)参与者(也包括与美国标准样本的精选比较)。研究使用认知和心理学方法来针对关于非人类中介概念中的文化差异的关键预测，以及关于道德圈和生态因果关系的相关推理。据预测，认知上的文化差异将导致个人以截然不同的方式进行环境决策：要么作为一个生态问题，将人类定位为环境的使用者和保护者，要么作为一个社会问题，将人类和非人类都定位为共享社区中有意的利益相关者。本论文研究将通过对跨文化推理自然的概念框架的新颖分析，提供对生态思想的道德和因果维度的洞察，从而推动认知理论的发展。这项工作的一个明显优势是它侧重于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，并在环境问题上提供了一个独特的优势。通过记录文化概念和价值观如何影响对环境权衡的看法，这项研究揭示了土著群体和主流群体之间的文化资源冲突(和合作)。更广泛地说，这些结果将加深对环境决策背后的文化和认知因素的了解，涉及人与环境相互作用的决策科学的核心问题。

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.