Human foragers are obligately group-living, and their high dependence on mutual aid is believed to have characterized our species' social evolution. It was therefore a central adaptive problem for our ancestors to avoid damaging the willingness of other group members to render them assistance. Cognitively, this requires a predictive map of the degree to which others would devalue the individual based on each of various possible acts. With such a map, an individual can avoid socially costly behaviors by anticipating how much audience devaluation a potential action (e.g., stealing) would cause and weigh this against the action's direct payoff (e.g., acquiring). The shame system manifests all of the functional properties required to solve this adaptive problem, with the aversive intensity of shame encoding the social cost. Previous data from three Western(ized) societies indicated that the shame evoked when the individual anticipates committing various acts closely tracks the magnitude of devaluation expressed by audiences in response to those acts. Here we report data supporting the broader claim that shame is a basic part of human biology. We conducted an experiment among 899 participants in 15 small-scale communities scattered around the world. Despite widely varying languages, cultures, and subsistence modes, shame in each community closely tracked the devaluation of local audiences (mean = +0.84). The fact that the same pattern is encountered in such mutually remote communities suggests that shame's match to audience devaluation is a design feature crafted by selection and not a product of cultural contact or convergent cultural evolution.

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China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is experiencing high levels of grassland degradation partially as a result of government policies to sedentarize nomadic pastoralists and privatize collective grasslands. Previous research suggests that these policies have reduced Mongolian pastoralists' ability to effectively manage grasslands and cope with negative climatic events. Herders in New Barag Right Banner (n = 50) representing both sedentary and mobile livestock management strategies were asked to respond to a scaled survey regarding their attitudes towards the effectiveness of their current grassland management strategies and their perceptions regarding the future of pastoralism in Inner Mongolia. Inter-rater reliability and MannWhitney U Tests were utilized to compare the attitudes towards grassland management and the future viability of livestock production and to test whether or not sedentary and mobile herders share the same attitudes towards these facets of their pastoral way of life. There is both high intra and inter-group agreement on the survey variables across settlement categories, indicating that sedentary and mobile herders share the same attitudinal orientations regardless of their settlement patterns. The implications of these results for future grassland policy and sustainable livestock production are also discussed. Keywords: pastoralism, China, Inner Mongolia, grassland policy, privatization, marketization RésuméMongolie intérieure de la Chine connaît des niveaux élevés de dégradation des prairies, en partie à cause des politiques gouvernementales qui essaient de sédentariser éleveurs nomades et de privatiser les prairies collectives. Des recherches antérieures suggèrent que ces politiques ont réduit la capacité des pasteurs mongols à gérer efficacement les prairies et faire face aux événements climatiques négatifs. On a demandé aux éleveurs à New Barag Right Bannière (n = 50) de répondre à un sondage à l'échelle sur leurs attitudes à l'égard de l'efficacité de leurs stratégies de gestion des prairies actuelle et leurs perceptions quant à l'avenir du pastoralisme en Mongolie intérieure. Ils représentaient les deux stratégies de gestion du bétail sédentaires et mobiles. Le coefficient d'objectivité et de Mann-Whitney U tests ont été utilisés pour comparer leurs attitudes envers la gestion des prairies et de la viabilité future de la production animale, et de tester si oui ou non les éleveurs sédentaires et mobiles partagent les mêmes attitudes à l'égard de ces aspects de leur mode de vie pastoral . Il ya accord sur les variables de l'enquête dans toutes les catégories d'établissement, entre les groupes et entre les groupes, ce qui indique que les éleveurs sédentaires et mobiles partagent les mêmes orientations attitudes indépendamment de leurs modes d'établissement. Les implications de ces résultats pour la future politique de prairies et de la production animale durable sont examinés. Mots-clés: pastoralisme, la Chine, la Mongolie intérieure, la politique de prairies, de la privatisa...

This study used common pool resource experimental economic games to explore the effects of natural disasters on Mongolian pastoralists' common pool resource management. In this game, two anonymous players have access to a hypothetical envelope of money from which they can withdraw funds. Three versions of the game were used: a version in which the amount of money players can withdraw is constant, one where the amount of money could change by chance, and a version where the amount could change because of a hypothetical natural disaster (dzud in Mongolian). The results indicate that framing the game as a natural disaster had no framing effects on players' behavior in two regions of Mongolia: one that is highly susceptible to winter weather disasters and one that is less susceptible. These results suggest that cultural norms and values regarding common pool resource use might prevent over-extraction in rural Mongolia.

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