| Abstract: |
This paper describes a cross-cultural research project on the relation between
how people conceptualize nature (their mental models) and how they act in it.
Mental models of nature differ dramatically among and within populations
living in the same area and engaged in more or less the same activities. This
has novel implications for environmental decision making and management,
including dealing with commons problems. Our research also offers a distinct
perspective on models of culture, and a unified approach to the study of
culture and cognition. We argue that cultural transmission and formation does
not consist primarily in shared rules or norms, but in complex distributions
of causally-connected representations across minds in interaction with the
environment. The cultural stability and diversity of these representations
often derives from rich, biologically-prepared mental mechanisms that limit
variation to readily transmissible psychological forms. This framework
addresses a series of methodological issues, such as the limitations of
conceiving culture to be a well-defined system or bounded entity, an
independent variable, or an internalized component of minds. |