Culture and Psychological Responses to Environmental Shocks: Cultural Ecology of Sidama Impulsivity and Niche Construction in Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Sidama people occupy a subsistence niche partitioned between traditional enset agropastoralism and transitional maize farming. Enset production is low risk and requires multiple years for cultivation and processing. Maize farming is high risk and high yield, requiring one growing season from planting to harvest. Contrasting enset and maize farming, we examine effects of crop loss and social shocks on Sidama impulsivity. We argue that impulsivity is a psychological process that is differentially activated by environmental shocks in the stable, traditional enset regime and unstable, transitional maize regime. Using a robust psychometric model derived from Barratt impulsiveness scale items, we demonstrate two dimensions of Sidama impulsivity: careful control (CC) and acts without thinking (AWT). Both dimensions are associated with environmental shocks, but the associations are moderated by socialecological regimes. In the enset regime, effects of shocks on impulsivity are muted. However, increased impulsivity is significantly associated with shocks in the global market-dependent maize regime. Effects on CC were significant for social shocks but not crop loss, while AWT was associated with crop loss and social shocks. Results may indicate domain-specific aspects of impulsivity in response to environmental perturbation. Impulsivity may be adaptive in the context bidirectional predictive processing in active cultural niche construction. Human thought is cultural (Bloch 2012; D'Andrade 1995; Sperber and Hirchfeld 2004; Strauss and Quinn 1997). Familiar and shared ways of thinking that worked for extended periods of time-often generations-give people reliable mental models for action: How shall I greet a person of equal status? What is the appropriate response to an insult? These mental models inform predictable outcomes inferred through regular interaction with people and environments in patterned practices (Roepstorff et al. 2010). But how do people react when favored habits and familiar actions result in unexpected or undesirable outcomes? Culture change is an intrapsychic phenomenon when old perceptions of normality are replaced by new ones. We wonder, what psychological processes facilitate culture change, and when are they activated? We draw on insights from social-ecological systems, niche construction, cognitive science, psychometrics, and cultural ecology to examine impulsivity among Sidama people occupying a fragmented subsistence niche at the intersection of traditional enset and transitional maize production. Recent developments in Sidama subsistence provide a case study in culture change. Most Sidama are agropastoral farmers living in the highlands to Rift Valley lowlands in Southwest Ethiopia. People have grown enset (Ensete ventricosum [Welw.] Cheesman), a root and stem staple crop, in this region since prehistoric times (Brandt 1984, 1996). The Sidama are one of the two most enset-reliant societies of the enset complex (Brandt et al. 1997; Quinlan et al. 2014; see also Shack 1963). Meanwhile, maize (Zea m...

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