For much of their history, the relationship between anthropology and psychology has been well captured by Robert Frost's poem, “Mending Wall,” which ends with the ironic line, “good fences make good neighbors.” The congenial fence was that anthropology studied what people think and psychology studied how people think. Recent research, however, shows that content and process cannot be neatly segregated, because cultural differences in what people think affect how people think. To achieve a deeper understanding of the relation between process (...) and content, research must integrate the methodological insights from both anthropology and psychology. We review previous research and describe new studies in the domain of folk biology which examine the cognitive consequences of different conceptualizations of nature and the place of humans within it. The focus is on cultural differences in framework theories among Native Americans and European American children and adults living in close proximity in rural Wisconsin. Our results show that epistemological orientations affect memory organization, ecological reasoning, and the perceived role of humans in nature. This research also demonstrates that cultural differences in framework theories have implications for understanding intergroup conflict over natural resources and are relevant to efforts to improve science learning, especially among Native American children. (shrink)

Analysis and case studies show that including different orientations toward the natural world makes for more effective scientific practice and science education.

ObjectivesHostile attribution bias is reportedly common from non-clinical population to those with serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, and is known to be closely related to theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate whether ToM skills mediate the relationship among neurocognitive ability, personality traits, and attribution bias.MethodsA total of 198 non-clinical youths were recruited. To assess their neurocognitive ability and ToM skills, the participants were asked to complete Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices and the Korean version of the Reading the (...) Mind in Eyes Test. To determine their personality traits, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and interpersonal reactivity index were used. To evaluate hostile attribution bias, the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire was administered. Path analysis and bias-corrected percentile bootstrap methods were used to estimate model fit and the parameters of the mediating effects.ResultsBased on model comparison, the best model characterized two direct pathways from psychoticism and the K-RMET to hostility attribution bias and three indirect pathways, wherein SPM, perspective taking, and psychoticism influenced hostile attribution bias through K-RMET. The final model fit indices were good [x2/df = 1.126; comparative fit index = 0.996; root mean square error of approximation = 0.026; standard root mean square residual = 0.026 and Akaike information criterion = 28.251] and the K-RMET fully mediated the association between SPM, perspective taking, psychoticism, and hostile attribution bias.ConclusionThe main findings suggested that ToM skills, such as the RMET, play an important role in explaining the relationship among neurocognitive ability, personality traits, and hostile attribution bias. ToM skills and a remediation strategy may need to be developed to balance the enhanced hostility bias that underlies the paranoia. (shrink)

Yarkoni's paper makes an important contribution to psychological research by its insightful analysis of generalizability. We suggest, however, that broadening research practices to include field research and the correlated use of both converging and complementary observations gives reason for optimism.