Ojalehto Bethany L, Medin Douglas L, García Salino G
Psychology Department, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road - 102 Swift Hall, Evanston, IL 60208-2710, United States.
Psychology Department, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road - 102 Swift Hall, Evanston, IL 60208-2710, United States.
Cognition. 2017 May;162:103-123. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.023. Epub 2017 Feb 20.
The present research addresses cultural variation in concepts of agency. Across two experiments, we investigate how Indigenous Ngöbe of Panama and US college students interpret and make inferences about nonhuman agency, focusing on plants as a critical test case. In Experiment 1, participants predicted goal-directed actions for plants and other nonhuman kinds and judged their capacities for intentional agency. Goal-directed action is pervasive among living kinds and as such we expected cultural agreement on these predictions. However, we expected that interpretation of the capacities involved would differ based on cultural folktheories. As expected, Ngöbe and US participants both inferred that plants would engage in goal-directed action but Ngöbe were more likely to attribute intentional agency capacities to plants. Experiment 2 extends these findings by investigating action predictions and capacity attributions linked to complex forms of plant social agency recently discovered in botanical sciences (communication, kin altruism). We hypothesized that the Ngöbe view of plants as active agents would productively guide inferences for plant social interaction. Indeed, Ngöbe were more likely than US participants to infer that plants can engage in social behaviors and they also attributed more social agency capacities to plants. We consolidate these findings by using bottom-up consensus modeling to show that these cultural differences reflect two distinct conceptual models of agency rather than variations on a single (universal) model. We consider these findings in light of current theories of domain-specificity and animism, and offer an alternative account based on a folktheory of communication that infers agency on the basis of relational interactions rather than having a mind.
本研究探讨了能动性概念中的文化差异。在两项实验中，我们调查了巴拿马的恩戈贝原住民和美国大学生如何解释非人类能动性并对其进行推理，重点将植物作为一个关键的测试案例。在实验1中，参与者预测了植物和其他非人类的目标导向行为，并判断它们的意向能动性能力。目标导向行为在生物种类中普遍存在，因此我们预计在这些预测上会有文化上的共识。然而，我们预计对所涉及能力的解释会因文化民俗理论而有所不同。正如预期的那样，恩戈贝人和美国参与者都推断植物会采取目标导向行为，但恩戈贝人更有可能将意向能动性能力归因于植物。实验2通过研究与植物科学中最近发现的复杂形式的植物社会能动性（交流、亲属利他主义）相关的行为预测和能力归因，扩展了这些发现。我们假设，恩戈贝人将植物视为积极能动者的观点将有效地指导对植物社会互动的推理。事实上，恩戈贝人比美国参与者更有可能推断植物可以参与社会行为，并且他们也赋予植物更多的社会能动性能力。我们通过自下而上的共识建模来巩固这些发现，以表明这些文化差异反映了两种不同的能动性概念模型，而不是单一（普遍）模型的变体。我们根据当前的领域特异性理论和万物有灵论来考虑这些发现，并基于一种基于关系互动而非有思维来推断能动性的交流民俗理论提供了一种替代解释。
