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Copyright of Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie ( KZfSS) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract In small‐scale societies, people learn to identify plant species during childhood. Plant recognition is an important baseline knowledge, immediately useful to avoid intoxication risk due to wrong identification. Plant recognition is the basis of other ethnobotanical knowledge essential for safeguarding biocultural diversity. However, despite many studies on folk classification, we still have a narrow understanding of the criteria locally used for species identification; the gap being even larger regarding children's plant identification criteria. Here, we study the criteria used by Betsileo children and adolescents to identify wild edible plant (WEP) species using a child‐adapted method including drawings and follow‐up interviews. We worked with 80 teenagers (from 12 to 17 years old; 51 girls, and 29 boys). Our results suggest that teenagers use a large spectrum of visual criteria to identify plants and that these criteria match with botanical and ecological knowledge documented in the literature and herbarium vouchers. We found that 35% of the identification criteria used were non‐morphological (e.g. phenology, biotic interactions), suggesting deep ecological knowledge. On average, teenagers use more than nine distinct criteria per plant, which allows them to identify most plant species with a very high level of precision. The precision level of plant representation increases with age for boys, but remains constant for girls, suggesting different dynamics in plant identification knowledge acquisition. We also found that boys and girls use different identification criteria: girls focus on morphological criteria while boys also incorporate ecological criteria, such as landscape features and biotic interactions, in their spectrum of identification keys. Our results highlight the complexity of teenagers' plant knowledge and the importance of the ecological context and gender in plant identification's knowledge acquisition. This knowledge acquired very early in childhood, constitutes the foundation of future interactions with nature and should be at the heart of environmental humanities studies and knowledge co‐production projects to tackle socio‐ecological concerns. Hence, we urge further research to explore innovative methods that complement traditional ethnoecological tools and capture complex sensory aspects of folk children's taxonomy to better understand human‐plant interactions and knowledge. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

In small‐scale societies, people learn to identify plant species during childhood. Plant recognition is an important baseline knowledge, immediately useful to avoid intoxication risk due to wrong identification. Plant recognition is the basis of other ethnobotanical knowledge essential for safeguarding biocultural diversity. However, despite many studies on folk classification, we still have a narrow understanding of the criteria locally used for species identification; the gap being even larger regarding children's plant identification criteria.Here, we study the criteria used by Betsileo children and adolescents to identify wild edible plant (WEP) species using a child‐adapted method including drawings and follow‐up interviews. We worked with 80 teenagers (from 12 to 17 years old; 51 girls, and 29 boys).Our results suggest that teenagers use a large spectrum of visual criteria to identify plants and that these criteria match with botanical and ecological knowledge documented in the literature and herbarium vouchers. We found that 35% of the identification criteria used were non‐morphological (e.g. phenology, biotic interactions), suggesting deep ecological knowledge.On average, teenagers use more than nine distinct criteria per plant, which allows them to identify most plant species with a very high level of precision. The precision level of plant representation increases with age for boys, but remains constant for girls, suggesting different dynamics in plant identification knowledge acquisition.We also found that boys and girls use different identification criteria: girls focus on morphological criteria while boys also incorporate ecological criteria, such as landscape features and biotic interactions, in their spectrum of identification keys.Our results highlight the complexity of teenagers' plant knowledge and the importance of the ecological context and gender in plant identification's knowledge acquisition.This knowledge acquired very early in childhood, constitutes the foundation of future interactions with nature and should be at the heart of environmental humanities studies and knowledge co‐production projects to tackle socio‐ecological concerns. Hence, we urge further research to explore innovative methods that complement traditional ethnoecological tools and capture complex sensory aspects of folk children's taxonomy to better understand human‐plant interactions and knowledge. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental disorders or altered psychological states are prevalent in all populations, regardless of race or ethnic origin, while at the same time, culture also shapes the conceptions of mental disorders. Religion is deeply rooted in the daily life of the Muslim-majority countries, while Arab countries are affected by an ongoing modernization. Thus, how does the traditional religious conception of mental disorders interact with Western psychological conceptions in contemporary Arab-Muslim society? This study explores the conceptions of mental disorders and their causes among Muslims in contemporary Jordan. By employing cognitive anthropological method (free listing), forty participants were asked to provide three lists of (a) typical names of mental disorders, (b) causes of mental disorders and (c) determining features of mental disorders. Collected qualitative data have been quantitatively analysed and interpreted in the context of relevant ethnographic and interview data. While Western terms of mental disorders are well known among young and educated Jordanians, the study demonstrates that Jordanians employ cultural and religious notions alongside. This co-existence of different conceptions confirms an importance of Islamic notion in the modern rendering of mental health. As a result, despite rapid modernization, mental health is still highly stigmatized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monsters and other imaginary animals have been conjured up by a wide range of cultures. Can their popularity be explained, and can their properties be predicted? These were long-standing questions for structuralist or cognitive anthropology, as well as literary studies and cultural evolution. The task is to solve the puzzle raised by the popularity of extraordinary imaginary animals, and to explain some cross-cultural regularities that such animals present—traits like hybridity or dangerousness. The standard approach to this question was to first investigate how human imagination deals with actually existing animals. Structuralist theory held that some animals are particularly "good to think with." According to Mary Douglas's influential hypothesis, this was chiefly true of animals that disrupt intuitive classifications of species—the "monsters-as-anomalies" account. But this hypothesis is problematic, as ethnobiology shows that folk classifications of biological species are so plastic that classificatory anomalies can be disregarded. This led cognitive anthropologists to propose alternative versions of the "monsters as anomalies" account. Parallel to this, a second account of monsters—"monsters-as-predators"—starts from the importance of predator detection to our past survival and reproduction, and argues that dangerous features make animals "good to think with," and should be overrepresented in imaginary animals. This article argues that both accounts understand something about monsters that the other account cannot explain. We propose a synthesis of these two accounts that attempts to explain why the two most characteristic aspects of monsters, anomalousness and predatoriness, tend to go together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropologists and psychologists have long studied how liv-ing kinds are organized into categories, and a recurring themeconcerns the relationship between folk categories and thestructure of the environment. We ask whether the frequencyand physical size of a species affect how it is classified, andaddress this question by linking frequency data from eBird (anonline database of bird observations) with an existing taxon-omy of Zapotec bird names. A first set of analyses exploreswhether frequency and size predict whether a bird is namedand how many other birds it is grouped with. A second setexplores whether frequency and size predict the word formsused as category labels. We find some evidence that frequencyaffects both category extensions and naming, but the resultshint that frequency may be dominated by other factors such asperceptual similarity.

Describing an algorithm can provide a formalization of a specific process. However, different ways of conceptualizing algorithms foreground certain issues while obscuring others. This article attempts to define an algorithm in a broad sense as a cultural activity of key importance to make sense of socio-cognitive structures. It also attempts to develop a sharper account on the interaction between humans and tools, symbols and technologies. Rather than human or machine-centered analyses, I draw upon sociological and anthropological theories that underline social practices to propose expanding our understanding of an algorithm through the notion of ‘collective intentionalities’. To make this term clear, a brief historical review is presented, followed by an argumentation on how to incorporate it in an integral perspective. The article responds to recent debates in critical algorithm studies about the significance of the term. It develops a discussion along the lines of cognitive anthropology and the cognitive sciences, therefore advancing a definition that is grounded in observed practices as well as in modeled descriptions. The benefit of this approach is that it encourages scholars to explore cognitive structures via archaeologies of technological assemblages, where intentionalities play a defining role in understanding socio-structured practices and cognitive ecologies.

The article presents the interdisciplinary approach of Edwin Hutchins, analyzing his conception of distributed cognition as probably the most important and lasting contribution of anthropology to the repertoire of theoretical tools in cognitive science. At the same time, this conception resulted in one of the most interesting relationships between cognitive science and social sciences. These relationships are made possible by the assumptions of Hutchins’ conception, which directly contribute to interdisciplinary collaboration. His account of distributed cognition has enormous potential, allowing the integration of research into cognitive and social processes. This is also because it breaks with methodological individualism.

The article examines the life story of a Greek Pontic, who migrated from central Macedonia (Greece) to Belgium in 1965. The account of his life starts with his father being born and living in the Samsun province (Ottoman Empire), that is before the exchange of populations in the 1920s and his arrival to Greece as refugee. This dense and precise life history narrative not only allows us to revisit major events of Greek history, but also to follow the social and geographical transitions and trajectories that a family made during a century. Socialization processes, appropriation and loss of economic resources, political choices, transmission of stereotypes are some of the issues discussed here. The analysis of this material is inspired by cognitive anthropology: one of the aims has been to examine how « analogic thinking », through the connections and the correspondences it establishes, leads to exegetical reflections that facilitate the process of understanding and coping with novel situations. In this framework, analogies not only play a heuristic role, but also give the impression of intimately knowing not lived situations and experiences of the past. By listing similarities and differences, analogical arguments become an adaptation tool in migratory contexts as the one analyzed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores traditional medicine beliefs among older Vietnamese persons in the Hoc Mon district. Twenty-two respondents aged 62 to 82 years and nine key informants were recruited. Bourdieu's theory of practice was used to analyze data through thematic analysis. The main findings explore two models of traditional medicine used in the aging population to control chronic diseases and post-stroke: (1) the switch from western to traditional medicine and (2) the use of both western and traditional medicine. Moreover, traditional medicine use is influenced by beliefs about susceptibility and severity of disease, the pros and cons of traditional medicine, and beliefs about traditional medicine practitioners. This exploratory study may shed more light on the promotion of traditional medicine for health and health management for the aging population in Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the debate about environmental sustainability, using the Skolt Sami conceptions of nature obligations as guides to this theme. The author's recent research material is analysed in relation to other relevant publications and sources of environmental anthropology. Three key factors emerge: reasonableness in the use of natural resources, protection of nature, and respect for nature. Gregory Bateson's models help to arrange these elements in relation to each other. It is argued here that respect for nature sets a scale for the conceptions of reasonableness and nature protection as the basis of environmental sustainability. The article produces questions and principles that may help put environmental sustainability into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological and cultural evolutionary accounts of human sociality propose that beliefs in punitive and monitoring gods that care about moral norms facilitate cooperation. While there is some evidence to suggest that belief in supernatural punishment and monitoring generally induce cooperative behaviour, the effect of a deity's explicitly postulated moral concerns on cooperation remains unclear. Here, we report a pre-registered set of analyses to assess whether perceiving a locally relevant deity as moralistic predicts cooperative play in two permutations of two economic games using data from up to 15 diverse field sites. Across games, results suggest that gods’ moral concerns do not play a direct, cross-culturally reliable role in motivating cooperative behaviour. The study contributes substantially to the current literature by testing a central hypothesis in the evolutionary and cognitive science of religion with a large and culturally diverse dataset using behavioural and ethnographically rich methods.

Crosslinguistic research on domains including kinship, color, folk biology, number, and spatial relations has documented the different ways in which languages carve up the world into named categories. Although word meanings vary widely across languages, unrelated languages often have words with similar or identical meanings, and many logically possible meanings are never observed. We review research suggesting that this pattern of constrained variation is explained in part by the need for words to support efficient communication. This research includes several recent studies that have formalized efficient communication in computational terms and a larger set of studies, both classic and recent, that do not explicitly appeal to efficient communication but are nevertheless consistent with this notion. The efficient communication framework has implications for the relationship between language and culture and for theories of language change, and we draw out some of these connections.

Cultures around the world organize stars into constellations, or asterisms, and these groupings are often considered to be arbitrary and culture specific. Yet there are striking similarities in asterisms across cultures, and groupings such as Orion, the Big Dipper, the Pleiades, and the Southern Cross are widely recognized across many different cultures. Psychologists have informally suggested that these shared patterns are explained by Gestalt laws of grouping, but there have been no systematic attempts to catalog asterisms that recur across cultures or to explain the perceptual basis of these groupings. Here, we compiled data from 27 cultures around the world and found that a simple computational model of perceptual grouping accounts for many of the recurring cross-cultural asterisms. Our results suggest that basic perceptual principles account for more of the structure of asterisms across cultures than previously acknowledged and highlight ways in which specific cultures depart from this shared baseline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of citizens in Serbia vaccinated against COVID-19 was among the highest in Europe in early 2021. It started to stagnate as it approached 50% total population coverage, while the number of cases started to rise. The paper presents the cultural thought that leads people to decline COVID-19 vaccination, and aims to show that such cultural thought can be described as social solipsism. This means that illusions about reality are used as a cognitive reference point for organizing the world around us. It has been noted that there is no uniform category of opponents of the fight against the pandemic. There are those who, in their negative attitude to everything that is being undertaken to curb the pandemic, are led by the idea that the illness does not exist; then there are those who are opposed to vaccination in general, but also those who oppose only COVID-19 vaccination; in addition, there are those who prioritize their own principles based on legal, moral or religious norms over vaccination, interpreting those norms in this way, and those who believe that their lifestyle and state of health protect them from illness, and that this, rather than vaccination, should be the guideline for the fight against the pandemic; then there are those who are doubtful about everything they read and hear in the media about COVID-19, as well as those who are unable to provide a more specific explanation about the reasons for refusing to be vaccinated, and those who have lost all trust in politicians, i.e. in the way that our society has been organized under the influence of state and social actors; then, there are those whose trust in the medical profession has declined. Finally, there is a distinct subgroup of respondents, namely those who are able to put together a small pseudotheoretical system which links the pandemic as a global fact with events which may or may not be connected with it in the local, Serbian sociocultural context, in a manner which they perceive as being causal. What characterizes the cultural thought that leads them to refuse vaccination is distrust of the dominant social discourses, primarily political and scientific and, above all, medical discourses, and they consequently ignore the objective facts these discourses are based on. Such cultural thought can be termed postlogical because it ignores those social discourses – primarily scientific ones – which talk about the objective state of factual reality; instead, it draws on arguments that are not characteristic of causal, factographically informed thought, influencing public opinion by appealing to convictions and feelings rather than facts.

In this article it is argued that conceptions of time have important cognitive and behavioural effects on historical agents, and that in ancient China at least one such conception tied fundamentally with the traditional Chinese calendar, the Stems and Branches system, is significantly different than the worldwide dominant modern conception of time in ways that deserve wider acknowledgement and exploration. The article relies on cognitive science literature, Takayama's method of uncovering ancient cognition, and Bradd Shore's Cultural Models Theory, to make its case. By examining the underlying qualitative and calculative structures of the calendar(s) in use by the humans we study, we can begin to see just how potentially different these views of time were and are in ways so fundamental to being in the world as to warrant new (re)considerations of historical actors cognizing about in and about their respective conceptual frameworks of time and the behaviours they engage in as a consequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology is the property of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this essay, I present and analyze differences in the perception of the world by two people who are representatives of two different cultures and societies. The first one is the anthropologist Fernando Santos-Granero and the second is a man from the Amazonian Yanesha group named Matar. Focusing on the description of a specific event that happened during the ethnographic fieldwork, I deal with the differences in its interpretation. Referring to the interactionist theory of reasoning proposed by Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier and on Anil Seth's research on perception, I assume that these differences are the result of each person's individually shaped perceptions and ways of reasoning. In this paper I seek to explain how perception and reasoning influence the formation of representations that arise in the human mind in relation to cultural as well as environmental phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text is an introduction to psychological anthropology, a subdiscipline of cultural anthropology that looks into interactions linking cultural phenomena with human psychological processes. The history of the concept of psychological anthropology and its definitions is discussed and then juxtaposed with explanations of the concepts of ethnopsychology, cultural psychology, and cognitive anthropology. The discussion is contextualized by the history of the subdiscipline itself, which over the last 150 years has been developed and co-developed - often in a complex and convoluted way - by subsequent anthropological approaches and trends, with which it has at times been identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at so-called corona parties in Serbia, which can be seen as a specific paradigm of exhibiting irresponsible health behavior during an epidemic. The term refers to illegal gatherings of a large number of people in circumstances when all gatherings are restricted under anti-epidemic measures. A phenomenon similar to corona parties and co-ocurring with them in the Serbian socio-cultural and pandemic temporal context, is the dancing of the traditional kolo dance in public spaces. Both phenomena represent a conscious disregard for one's own health and of regulations introduced by the authorities, and at the same time an emphatic public display of indifference towards the epidemiological situation in the country, and rejection of the consequent legal restrictions on public life. The paper aims to establish the cultural background of such behavior, i.e. to ascertain its socio-cultural meaning. The indirect or direct endangerment of one’s own or other people’s health, particularly in a pandemic, can be seen as a misanthropic act. The cultural notions on which such irrational behavior is based are a consequence of a postmodernist relativization of previously existing socio-cultural discourse on science, and are counterintuitive. Behavior based on these notions is an irrational response to changes in socio-cultural reality due to COVID-19. The response is not only irrational but also ineffective, as it cannot eliminate the undesired consequences of the given situation, neither in terms of the illness itself, nor in terms of how it will be managed by those who have been put in charge by the government. Due to this, such behavior can also be seen simply as a deliberate defiance of rules. The misanthropic quality of the behavior of those who ignore anti-epidemic measures by dancing kolo in the streets or attending corona parties is evident in the conscious rejection of the principle of not harming others. Ignoring the possible health risks to themselves, they ignore the possible health risks to others, and thus become social factors of biological contagion. It is in this way that such behavior becomes the cause of the extension of the very state of socio-cultural reality against which it is supposed to be directed.

When the internet appeared, both scientists and non-scientists discussed whether it was liberating the media and whether it was going to be transformed into a safe zone for the expression of free opinion. The answer to this question might be found within the cognitive anthropology concept of taxonomies. The etic taxonomy classification of religions (both in the online and/or offline worlds) has existed for a very long time. Still, the question of emic taxonomy remains. In other words, do cyber believers themselves perceive the internet as a place where they can express religious ideas that they could not do in their offline religious communities and connect with people who share the same/similar worldview? The goal of this paper is to answer the question of whether the scientific taxonomy and folk taxonomy (one of the religious cyber influencers chosen as a sample) converge or whether they differ and, in case they differ, whether the internet gives them the opportunity for free expression and making communities. Roy Wallis has been chosen as an example of scientific taxonomy, since his main criterion for classification is precisely the relationship of religious groups towards society (in this case, the mainstream discourse of both Serbian society and the Serbian Orthodox Church).

The purpose of the article is to introduce into art historical and cultural discourse of theoretically processed, generalized, analyzed information regarding the understanding of the meaning of symbols and signs in cultural studies and art historian scientists; Clarification of the root causes of the occurrence of basic concepts in cognitive anthropology. The methodology is based on the method of critical analysis of cultural, art historical, and literary sources; semiotic method; induction and deduction methods; historical, logical, and method of interdisciplinary synthesis. Scientific Novelty. Intrutded to the past experience of scientists, philosophers, art historians, culturalologists bring the need to pay attention to the meaning of symbols and signs in art history and cultural studies. The origins of the origin of the basic concepts of cognitive anthropology are found out. The author's vision of the badge and symbolism of the non-verbal language is set out, which is assimilated through the mastery of the national culture and requires intellectual efforts, corresponds to the N. Chomsky hypothesis, according to which the nature of knowledge, its use, material or physical mechanisms, the formation of the knowledge base and its application are associated with cognitive ability man in general. A modern approach to discuss issues on perceptual, security-indexed, subject-functional and other codes in the perception of reality are considered. The newest achievements of foreign and domestic researchers in the definitions of semiotic terminology, logical justifications of symbols and signs in cultural studies, and art historian examination were studied and analyzed. Conclusions. The results of the study of literary sources on this topic provided the opportunity to draw conclusions that in the analyzed editions of many authors was given insufficient attention to the origin of the terms of cognitive anthropology in the presentation of scientific material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vampire in Serbian traditional culture and the vampire in popular culture are two different beings. The former is virtually identical to people in his community, does not undergo a change of character after death, and getting rid of him is the task of the whole community. He is linked to his socio-cultural environment and his existence is not linked to physiological needs and possibilities, but is circumscribed by the ability of the living members of his community to oppose him. The latter is a distinct being with supernatural abilities, whose character changes after death in the sense that he becomes a predator, a physical and ontological threat to man, and can be opposed by those who know his characteristics and weaknesses. He is not territorially restricted in his actions, but from the author's point of view he is always depicted as an interloper. He is a simulation of man insofar as he has to sustain himself in the afterlife by feeding himself, and has the ability to reproduce, i.e. to produce new beings of his kind. They have the following in common: 1) they continue to exist after death in their own physical body; 2) they are representations of the revived dead body of a concrete person, whose behavior has in the case of both models been altered precisely to the extent that this alteration can be ascribed to the notion of physical existence after death. The given malevolence, as the fundamental characteristic of the vampire's relationship to people, in both cases stems more from the meaning of the existence of these models than from a concept of an afterlife, that is, from the need to resolve the internal problems of the traditional community conceived as the local environment, and the need for self-determination towards that which is different, alien and foreign in societies of the new type, based on transcending socio-cultural locality and establishing global cultural communication.

Copyright of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology is the property of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology is the property of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Most research on cognition behind religious belief assumes that understanding of other minds is culturally uniform and follows the Western model of mind, which posits that (a) others’ thoughts can be known and (b) action is best explained by mental state inference. This is potentially problematic if, as a growing body of evidence suggests, other populations view minds differently. We recruit Indigenous iTaukei Fijians who hold (a) a model of mind that discourages mental state inference and (b) co-existing Christian (Western) and traditional supernatural agent beliefs. Study 1 (N = 108), uses free-listing to examine how Western and local models of mind relate to beliefs. The Christian God cares about internal states and traits (aligning with the Western model of mind). Study 2 tests whether evoking God triggers intent focus in moral reasoning. Instead, God appears to enforce cultural models of mind in iTaukei (N = 151) and North Americans (N = 561). Expected divine judgement mirrors human judgement; iTaukei (N = 90) expect God to emphasise outcome, while Indo-Fijians (N = 219) and North Americans (N = 412) expect God to emphasise intent. When reminded to think about thoughts, iTaukei (N = 72) expect God to judge outcomes less harshly. Results suggest cultural/cognitive co-evolution: introduced cultural forms can spread new cognitive approaches, while Indigenous beliefs can persist as a reflection of local institutions.

Copyright of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology is the property of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite the existence of significant research on the mental health care challenges of migrants, particularly refugees and asylum seekers, less attention has been paid to treatment approaches. We used a case study from the UK to look at the topic from a cultural models approach (which comes from cognitive anthropology) to analyse migrants' experiences with mental health care. Twenty-five refugees and asylum seekers living in North East England and Northern Ireland were interviewed who had used at least six sessions of talking therapy during the last three years. Our results suggested that adopting a 'cultural models' approach, which offers a new conceptual and methodological framework of migrants' experiences and their underlying schemas and expectations, would significantly contribute to building therapeutic alliances and provide relevant and appropriate treatments for migrant clients, particularly for unrecognised pre- and post-migration traumatic experiences.

Mexican immigrant women come to the United States in pursuit of what they call la buena vida (the good life) for themselves and for their children. The research described here attempts to better understand what la buena vida means to these women in terms of what they perceive as necessary to achieve this ideal. While the theoretical construct of acculturation is typically used to study what happens to individuals transitioning from one cultural orientation to another, this study utilizes a cognitive approach to resolve some of the inherent problems in acculturation research—specifically, the failure to define or measure culture or to link culture to the individual. Cultural consensus analysis is used to empirically describe how la buena vida is conceptualized among Mexican-born women living in Birmingham, Alabama, and areas of both agreement and disagreement regarding the domain are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study combines current theories and methods from the field of disability studies and cognitive anthropology in the development of a cross culturally replicable and comparative model for evaluating stigma toward, versus social integration of, people with disabilities in society. Weaknesses in previous ways of measuring and comparing 'social integration' are addressed, as well as known challenges of measuring attitudes and stigma toward disability, especially in a cross‐culturally applicable and comparative way. A new application to previously existing methods in the field of cognitive anthropology is introduced which addresses these challenges. A case study conducted in Poland is described which illustrates the proposed methods. In conclusion, a roadmap for future research is provided which briefly reiterates the steps needed to replicate the study in various cultural contexts. Understanding the ways in which people with disabilities are perceived to deviate from culturally shared norms in a society may pave the way for the development of more effective and culturally targeted social policies in an effort to promote the social integration of all members of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study was to investigate the cultural meanings of the Educational Model concept, through the exploration of cognitive dimensions and the cultural consensus in teachers at an Ecuadorian public university. Methodology: Qualitative, descriptive, exploratory design; framed in Cognitive Anthropology. Free listing techniques were applied, and lots were drawn in successive phases; the first of 20 teachers, and the second of 18 teachers each time; based on the Romney, Weller, and Batchelder Model. Results: Cultural consensus levels in a ratio of 5,213, and cultural competence average of 3,196, showed agreement within the group. Main, intermediate, and secondary components were identified. The Thematic hierarchization of the discourse allowed for grouping in an epistemological, curricular, and pedagogical model. Conclusions: The participants think homogeneously, the cultural meanings of the educational model were adjusted to consensus, without cultural variation among teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Antropología Social is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent years have seen the growing promise of cultural evolutionary theory as a new approach to bringing human behaviour fully within the broader evolutionary synthesis. This review of two recent seminal works on this topic argues that cultural evolution now holds the potential to bring together fields as disparate as neuroscience and social anthropology within a unified explanatory and ontological framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]