Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cognitive processes underlying variation in human-environment interactions

在环境管理的发展过程中，哪些因素是最重要的？在不同的文化和环境背景下，这些因素是如何变化的？这一博士论文项目试图调查人们对自然环境的理解的差异，以及这些理解如何影响保护工作。该项目对研究生进行实证性、人种学数据收集和分析方法的培训，使用尖端人类学方法和理论来阐明推动对环境资源的共同理解的潜在认知过程。这项研究的结果将广泛传播给学术和非学术受众，包括非政府组织和环境管理方面的利益攸关方。具体地说，这项研究询问与海洋环境接触的不同模式是否反映了对人类活动和自然界的不同道德态度，以及这种道德态度是否会影响与保护相关的决策。这项工作位于海洋娱乐的背景下，像许多其他作品一样，也非常容易受到气候的影响，这带来了一个共同的两难境地，即平衡开发和保护以保护娱乐活动。研究人员使用文化共识分析和民族志方法来探索被认为在道德上可接受的差异，以及这种道德如何影响个人驾驭道德困境的方式。这项研究将有助于更广泛、更细致入微地理解环境道德是影响社会环境系统行为的驱动力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

What factors are most formative in the development of environmental stewardship, and how do they vary across different cultural and environmental contexts? This doctoral dissertation project seeks to investigate variation in understandings of the natural environment and how these understandings shape conservation efforts. The project, which trains a graduate student in methods of empirical, ethnographic data collection and analysis, uses cutting-edge anthropological methods and theory to shed light on underlying cognitive processes driving shared understandings of environmental resources. The findings of this research will be disseminated broadly to academic and non-academic audiences, including NGOs and stakeholders in environmental stewardship. Specifically, this research asks whether different modes of engagement with marine environments reflect different moral attitudes about human activity and the natural world, and whether such moral attitudes inform conservation-relevant decision making. The work is situated in a marine recreation context that, like many others, is also highly climate-vulnerable, posing a common dilemma of balancing exploitation against conservation to preserve recreational activities. The investigators use cultural consensus analysis and ethnographic methods to explore variation in what is considered morally acceptable, as well as how this morality informs the way individuals navigate ethical dilemmas. The research will contribute to a broader, nuanced understanding of environmental morality as a driver influencing behavior in socio-environmental systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.