Sheep herders are not sheep???
Ecocultural basis of cognition: Farmers and fishermen are more holistic than herders:
It has been proposed that social interdependence fosters holistic cognition, that is, a tendency to attend to the broad perceptual and cognitive field, rather than to a focal object and its properties, and a tendency to reason in terms of relationships and similarities, rather than rules and categories. This hypothesis has been supported mostly by demonstrations showing that East Asians, who are relatively interdependent, reason and perceive in a more holistic fashion than do Westerners. We examined holistic cognitive tendencies in attention, categorization, and reasoning in three types of communities that belong to the same national, geographic, ethnic, and linguistic regions and yet vary in their degree of social interdependence: farming, fishing, and herding communities in Turkey’s eastern Black Sea region. As predicted, members of farming and fishing communities, which emphasize harmonious social interdependence, exhibited greater holistic tendencies than members of herding communities, which emphasize individual decision making and foster social independence. Our findings have implications for how ecocultural factors may have lasting consequences on important aspects of cognition.
I reviewed the Richard Nisbet’s Geography of Thought 5 years ago. There seems to be a substantial literature on this topic in regards to different dominant modes of cognition. There is a great deal of overlap, and these tendencies seem to be highly plastic (e.g., you can “train” someone to think in an alien mode rather quickly), but on the margins the average differences between societies have likely mattered a great deal. Would anyone, for example, claim that the individualism of the Celts vis-a-vis the Romans in their fighting styles served them well? In contrast, total nomads (as opposed to farmers who practice a great deal of animal husbandry) can arguably leverage individual action against slow moving group formations to a far greater extent (e.g., as evidenced by the shift by the Romans themselves from fixed infantry based defenses toward mobile armies during the late Empire). And of course both When Histories Collide and Farewell to Alms seem to be making the case that particular economic and social systems have fostered customs and traits which are beneficial to the flourishing of capitalism.
Labels: Cognitive Science, culture
Could this be said to explain American culture to some extent? The forward-moving individualism required to settle the new land lead America to keep in ‘explorer’ mode, leading to new cultural movements, and things like the space race. Perhaps that has gone on to ‘exploring’ the world with their military. (what’s that word I’m looking for? where something produced by evolution leads to an unforeseen consequence and use?)
I wonder which group selects for higher digit ratios in males.
“I wonder which group selects for higher digit ratios in males.”
That’s an interesting question.
On a semi-related note, I would be interested in seeing an attempted correction for amount and type of visuospatial processing involved in the three niches. This could very well be a confounding factor.
For instance, in the task with the gloves, hand, and scarf, the gloves and hand are related not only by a functional resemblance, but by a morphological (shape) similarity as well. Also, in the task with the square and line, the relative task corresponds to seeing the same hypothetical object at different viewing distances, i.e. a common spatial transformation, yet absolute lengths of lines in a visual field are not a useful cue in most 3-D environments.
Interestingly, given the tasks shown in the paper, I probably would have shown a preference for the “holistic” style in all three tasks–even the one with the flowers where the “independent” unidimensional rule was favored to varying degrees in all societies (Note, however that this would have changed if I had learned that the stem shape was especially predictive of something). This is despite the fact that I am very individualistic and frankly awful at perceiving context in social situations.
I think the reason is that categories “for their own sake” are a kind of verbal construct that depends on a certain reference point or convention, whereas perceptual similarity is more of a visual property. When I say “for their own sake”, I mean categories that do not correspond to any overall structural or functional properties. For instance, “reptiles” corresponds to a group of animals with similar overall morphological and physiological characteristics (cold-blooded, skin often covered with some type of scales, etc.), whereas “animals with a long tail” does not. When looked at in this sense, the distinction almost seems to say the opposite of what the authors think–shouldn’t societies that emphasize conformity be MORE attentive to seemingly arbitrary dividing lines and rules?
Fails to pass a basic smell test.
the low income segment of the herders (the odd group) was much larger. Why didnt they use income as a covariate? Probably because it zapped or weakened the effect?
the so-called contextual preferences also map onto ones that I would have chosen. They are also more abstract!
the third (flowers) similarity task is better explained via a features of similarity approach (different weights assigned to common and distinctive features.. cf Tversky 1977)Note that the biases are all in the same direction and aren’t particularly strong.
Also note this most excellent post-hoc rationalization.
It is noteworthy that we found no gender differences. At first glance, this might seem odd because, especially in fishing and herding, men are far more likely than women to engage in these
activities. We suggest, however, that dominant forms of ecocultural activity of a community influence the degree of social interdependence of the community as a whole. All members of
the community are, therefore, likely to be cognitively shaped regardless of whether they directly engage in the economic activities at issue.
conclusion: worthless
The paper’s evidence may not be that convincing but any country which has a sheep-raising region (usually hills or mountains) probably stereotypes its inhabitants as stubborn and uncooperative. That’s certainly true in Poland.
I’ve worked on developing geographical typologies of human behavior based on location, livelihood, and military factors. Peasants are immobile and servile, and the rulers of peasant societies emphasize order and submission and build glorious empires. EXCEPT that peasants in mountainous areas (Balkans, Atlas mountains, Caucasus, even Switzerland) are better able to defend themselves and are hard for the central state to control. They tend toward a kind of individualist anarchy. Pastoral peoples, whether on the steppes or in the mountains, are almost impossible to control because of their mobility, and even pastoral leaders have trouble controlling their nations for long (unless they are able to exploit the agrarian world via taxes, tribute, and raiding.)
Long distance traders, like nomads, are mobile and weakly identified with homelands, and they have a subversive effect on the agrarian empires and their philosophies of order.
The military in sedentary societies can be a disordering force, and also can be a force for geographical integration (via conquest and mercenary service) of diverse and distant lands. Sometimes I think that from the point of view of capitalist development, the nomads and the military can join the long distance traders as progressive forces challenging the ethnocentricity and conservatism of the agrarian empires.
Actually, “Clan anarchy”, not “individualist anarchy”, though clan leaders can behave very individualistically.
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.