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

在环境管理的发展过程中，哪些因素是最具形成性的？它们在不同的文化和环境背景下有何不同？本博士论文项目旨在调查对自然环境理解的变化，以及这些理解如何影响保护工作。该项目旨在培养一名研究生在经验、人种学数据收集和分析方面的方法，使用尖端的人类学方法和理论来阐明推动对环境资源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界和非学术界的读者，包括非政府组织和环境管理的利益相关者。具体而言，本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世界的不同道德态度，以及这种道德态度是否为保护相关决策提供了信息。这项工作位于海洋娱乐环境中，与许多其他环境一样，海洋娱乐环境也极易受到气候变化的影响，因此面临着平衡开发与保护以保护娱乐活动的共同困境。研究人员使用文化共识分析和民族志方法来探索被认为是道德上可接受的变化，以及这种道德如何影响个人应对道德困境的方式。这项研究将有助于更广泛、细致入微地理解环境道德作为影响社会环境系统行为的驱动因素。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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.