Abstract
The complex, context-dependent, and dynamic nature of human behavior is increasingly recognized as both an important cause of sustainability problems and potential leverage for their solution. Human beings are diverse, as are the social, ecological, and institutional settings in which they are embedded. Despite this recognition and extensive knowledge about human decision-making in the behavioral sciences, empirical analysis, formal models, and decision support for sustainability policy in natural resource management often either neglect human behavior or are based on narrow and overly simplistic assumptions. Integrating insights from behavioral sciences into sustainability research and policy remains a challenge. This is in part due to the abundance and fragmentation of theories across the social sciences and in part the challenges of translating research across disciplines. We provide a set of tools to support the integration of knowledge about human behavior into empirical and model-based sustainability research. In particular, we (i) develop a process-oriented framework of embedded human cognition (Human Behavior-Cognition in Context or HuB-CC), (ii) select an initial set of 31 theories with the potential to illuminate behavior in natural resource contexts and map them onto the framework, and (iii) suggest pathways for using the framework and mapping to encourage trans-disciplinary investigations, identify and compare theories, and facilitate their integration into empirical research, formal models, and ultimately policy and governance for sustainability. Our theory selection, framework, and mapping offer a foundation—a “living” platform—upon which future collaborative efforts can build to create a resource for scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of social sciences and natural resource management.
Highlights
The need to account for the complex, context-dependent, and dynamic nature of decision making and behavior in collective action problems and governance of social-ecological systems (SES) is increasingly recognized (Weber and Johnson 2009; Fulton et al 2011; Victor 2015; Beckage et al 2018; Schill et al 2019)
We (1) provide a framework of embedded decision-making that describes and integrates key concepts from major themes studied in cognitive psychology, (2) select a relevant and illustrative initial set of theories from the social and behavioral sciences and map them onto the framework and (3) suggest different pathways through which the framework in combination with the mapping of theories can help inform theory selection, analysis of human behavior in empirical contexts and the development of social-ecological models
In “Methods” and “HuB-CC framework and theory selection,” we introduce a set of tools for organizing and contrasting relevant theories from across the social and behavioral sciences—a framework of embedded cognition and behavior and an initial selection of prominent theories of individual decision-making, which may offer insights into some of the behavioral patterns identified by SES research
Summary
The need to account for the complex, context-dependent, and dynamic nature of decision making and behavior in collective action problems and governance of social-ecological systems (SES) is increasingly recognized (Weber and Johnson 2009; Fulton et al 2011; Victor 2015; Beckage et al 2018; Schill et al 2019). In sociology and institutional economics, the focus has tended towards the social and institutional structures that shape individual and collective decision making, from theories about social networks to social norms to organizational behavior (Granovetter 1985, 2005; Ostrom 1990; March and Olsen 1996; March 1997; Bicchieri 2006) This four-part classification of recent theoretical developments in the behavioral and social sciences offers a complementary perspective to other syntheses of this literature (Mellers et al 1998; Kahneman 2003; Weber and Johnson 2009). Whereas most previous summaries of this body of literature have focused on the deficits and cognitive and emotional “constraints” of boundedly-rational decision-makers, our summary balances this view with a narrative of “abundance,” focusing on the diversity of goals and processes underlying decision making, and focusing on decision making in dynamic environments and in richer social, institutional and ecological contexts These broad trends inform the types of processes, behaviors, and theories we had in mind as we developed the tools presented in the subsequent sections of this paper
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