The Development of Decision-Making Across Diverse Cultural Contexts

Sustainability relies heavily on the actions of decision-makers at both the individual and collective levels. Our understanding of the processes and preferences through which decisions arise, however, is limited by a nearly exclusive focus on adults in Western societies. What can we learn about decision-making processes by considering the cultural and developmental pathways through which preferences arise? In this talk, I focus on the development of core preferences related to climate action — those relating to risk, time, and cooperation — and highlight variation in their ontogeny across diverse societies, ranging from U.S. Americans to forager-horticulturalists in the Amazon. My research suggests that preferences are flexibly developed across an individual’s life span, vary systematically in response to early inputs, can persist into adulthood, and are sensitive to the normative environment. This integrative research approach not only enhances our understanding of psychological development, more broadly, but has the potential to uniquely inform the design of policies and interventions to promote positive outcomes across the globe.   

Biography:

Dr. Dorsa Amir is a behavioral scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Yale University in 2018. Her interdisciplinary research program uses tools from anthropology, psychology, and behavioral economics to explore how differing cultural environments shape the developing mind and help construct consequential features of our decision-making. Her primary fieldwork is conducted in collaboration with the Shuar of eastern Ecuador, with complementary fieldwork through research collaborations across five continents.