Risk-sensitive Decision Making: Subsistence Diversification in Response to Novel Environments

这个项目进行了一个自然的实验，以询问不平等是如何从一个不分阶层的经济中产生的，以及哪些特征预先适应了某些个人和群体，以便在经济多样化下取得不同的成功。快速的社会和经济变化提供了许多新的机会，这些机会可能对个人有利。然而，采用新的社会组织模式和谋生方式也是有风险的，因为在评估追求陌生行为的成本和收益时，传统知识可能不够充分。这种情况在许多遇到新市场的社会中普遍存在。这一进程尤其重要，因为社会和财富不平等是市场准入的结果，目前人们对这一进程知之甚少。因此，在这里，我们试图了解，当引入新的机会时，为什么一些个人和家庭能够更好地利用这种情况，而另一些人试图失败或继续依赖传统和保守的生活方式？收入不平等的负面影响在大众媒体和学术文献中都越来越受到关注，因为它与包括健康、教育和老龄化在内的生活质量指标有关。为了回答不平等是如何在一群人中出现的问题，并解决人们对其负面影响的更广泛担忧，犹他大学的研究人员凯伦·L·克莱默博士和瑞安·沙赫特博士将与一群农村玛雅人合作。这项人口研究为探索不平等的出现和后果提供了一个理想的机会，原因有两个：1)玛雅人最近才经常进入有报酬的劳动力和经济市场，并且刚刚开始显示出财富、健康和教育方面的不平等迹象；2)与玛雅人合作有助于研究人员解释许多混淆的因素，这些因素混淆了西方对不平等和负面结果之间关联的明确解释。研究人员将检验这一假设，即风险取向是不平等出现的关键决定因素。中心预测是，先前存在的亲属和非亲属网络规模的差异会影响风险取向，从而促进财富(土地、消费品、现金、教育、健康)的差异积累，其中一些人比另一些人更多。该项目结合了网络和风险敏感性方法来研究多样化社会经济条件下的决策。他们的研究结果不仅将为许多正在经历经济和财富转型的小规模社会带来的后果提供洞察力，也将为经历日益严重的财富不平等的工业化人口提供洞察力。

This project conducts a natural experiment to ask how inequality arises out of an unstratified economy, and which traits preadapt certain individuals and groups to differentially succeed under economic diversification. Rapid social and economic change offer many new opportunities that are of possible benefit to individuals. However, adopting new modes of social organization and ways of making a living are also risky because traditional knowledge may be inadequate when evaluating the costs and benefits of pursuing unfamiliar behaviors. This situation is widespread in many societies encountering new markets. This process, which is currently poorly understood, is of particular importance because social and wealth inequality emerge as a result of market access. Thus, here we seek to learn, when novel opportunities are introduced, why are some individuals and families better able to take advantage of the situation, while others try and fail or continue to rely on traditional and conservative lifeways? The negative impact of income inequality is of growing concern both in both the popular press and academic literature because of its associations with quality of life indicators, including patterns of health, education and aging. To answer the question of how inequality emerges within a group of people, and to address broader concerns regarding its negative impacts, University of Utah researchers Drs. Karen L. Kramer and Ryan Schacht will work with a group of rural Maya. This study population provides an ideal opportunity to explore the emergence and consequences of inequality for two key reasons: 1) the Maya have only recently had regular access to wage labor and economic markets and are just beginning to show signs of inequality in wealth, health, and education; 2) working with the Maya helps the researchers to account for many of the confounding factors that confuse a clear interpretation of associations between inequality and negative outcomes in the West. The researchers will test the hypothesis that risk orientation is a key determinant for the emergence of inequality. The central prediction is that preexisting variation in kin and non-kin network size affects risk orientation and subsequently facilitates the differential accumulation of wealth (land, consumer goods, cash, education, health) by some more than others. The project integrates a network and risk sensitivity approach to study decision-making under diversifying socioeconomic conditions. Their research findings will offer insight not only to the consequences looming for many small-scale societies currently undergoing economic and wealth transitions, but also to industrialized populations experiencing ever increasing levels of wealth inequality.