The Lovable, the Loathsome, and the Liminal: Emotionality in Ethnozoological Cognition

Nolan, Justin M.; Jones, Katlin E.; Mcdougal, Kenneth Wade; Mcfarlin, Matthew J.; Ward, M. K.

doi:10.2993/0278-0771(2006)26[126:tltlat]2.0.co;2

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Some authors have also studied the influence of emotional orientations on human cognition relative to other animals [ 14 , 15 ], as well as on the effectiveness of the process of environmental education [ 16 ], and emphasized the function of the affective-emotional domain in stimulating human knowledge and learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do emotions influence the motivations and preferences of keepers of stingless bees?

Carvalho

Martins

Alves

et al. 2018

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

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BackgroundAccording to the biophilia hypothesis, an emotional affiliation with nature has been inherited during human biocultural evolution. Research on beekeeping can contribute to the scientific understanding of the influence of emotions in the human-nature relationship, since this activity provides concrete experiences of beneficial interaction between the human being and the environment by stimulating conservation-friendly values among practitioners. In this study, we investigated motivations and preferences driving beekeepers’ choices. We hypothesized that emotional criteria would be the main motivators in choosing to include beekeeping into small-scale farming systems. We also assumed that, once beekeeping has been chosen, the preference among species of bees for raising would also be influenced mainly by emotional criteria.MethodsData were collected from free lists and semi-structured interviews with 52 keepers of stingless bees from Sítio Xixá in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. The content analysis technique was used to analyze data from interviews. The underlying criteria for motivation and preference quoted in the free lists were analyzed with Smith’s Salience Index.ResultsEmotional and esthetic criteria were the most salient motivations for choosing beekeeping as one of the activities in small-scale farming systems. On the other hand, honey productivity and bee behavior were the most salient criteria for the preference for certain bee species to be kept.ConclusionsEmotional criterion had an especially notable influence on the motives for practicing beekeeping, but not on the preference of species to be raised. This demonstrates that the scenario under study represents a panorama of multiple influences in which emotions are one, but not the only, important component. Finally, our results indicate that the emotional domain should be taken into account in environmental education efforts and in the planning of bee management and nature conservation policies.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do emotions influence the motivations and preferences of keepers of stingless bees?

Carvalho

Martins

Alves

et al. 2018

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

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“…It must be recognized that beside biophilia runs a countercurrent of biophobia. Our contemporary urban aversion to mosquitoes, ticks, spiders, snakes, bats, and rats (Nolan and Robbins 2001;Nolan et al 2006) is shared to some degree in Indigenous communities, as shown by traditional classifications of "wugs" and "noxious invertebrates," as I found in my Tzeltal Mayan ethnotaxonomies (Hunn 1977). Tzeltal Maya from Tenejapa, Chiapas, Mexico, elaborate their classification of insects to the greatest degree in dealing with social hymenoptera, ants, bees, and wasps, not so much in recognition of their beauty or positive utility but rather because of the competitive and often painful interactions with these creatures in their daily lives.…”

Section: Perspec Vementioning

confidence: 95%

To Know Them is to Love Them

Hunn

2014

EBL

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I connect the theoretical emphasis that motivated the cognitive ethnobiology of the 1960s and early 1970s with the contemporary emphasis on promoting ethnobiology as contributing to biodiversity conservation. I use the words of a popular song to highlight the necessary, if problematic, links between knowing nature – the focus of cognitive ethnobiology, loving nature, and acting to conserve nature. I argue that a highly elaborated knowledge of the living things in one's local environment is characteristic of Indigenous and other deeply rooted communities, which are dependent on sustainable harvests of local natural resources. Furthermore, this extensive knowledge goes hand in hand with a deep emotional engagement with those species (“love”), which is in turn powerful motivation to treat those species with respect, absent dominance of profit motives. I suggest in conclusion that ethnobiology may best contribute to biodiversity conservation by documenting the detailed knowledge of and cultural appreciation for biodiversity evident in such rooted communities – an effort that has defined the ethnobiological project for over the past half century. The wider community of activists dedicated to biodiversity conservation may thus better know and thus appreciate – respect, if not “love” – those who live with and depend for their livelihood on this biodiversity.

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“…The reason for this became clear after investigating the words included in the sentiment lexicons, which included shark as a negative term. Nolan et al (2006) described how perceptions of animals prime human attitudes, a factor that can yield a mismatch between perception and reality as it pertains to wildlife. For sharks, fear associated with bites, amplified by negative portrayals of sharks, may be resulting in the negative sentiments related to this word (Philpott 2002;Neff 2015).…”

Section: Taxonomy and Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Sentiment analysis as a measure of conservation culture in scientific literature

Lennox

Veríssimo

Twardek

et al. 2019

Conservation Biology

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Culturomics is emerging as an important field within science, as a way to measure attitudes and beliefs and their dynamics across time and space via quantitative analysis of digitized data from literature, news, film, social media, and more. Sentiment analysis is a culturomics tool that, within the last decade, has provided a means to quantify the polarity of attitudes expressed within various media. Conservation science is a crisis discipline; therefore, accurate and effective communication are paramount. We investigated how conservation scientists communicate their findings through scientific journal articles. We analyzed 15,001 abstracts from articles published from 1998 to 2017 in 6 conservation‐focused journals selected based on indexing in scientific databases. Articles were categorized by year, focal taxa, and the conservation status of the focal species. We calculated mean sentiment score for each abstract (mean adjusted z score) based on 4 lexicons (Jockers‐Rinker, National Research Council, Bing, and AFINN). We found a significant positive annual trend in the sentiment scores of articles. We also observed a significant trend toward increasing negativity along the spectrum of conservation status categories (i.e., from least concern to extinct). There were some clear differences in the sentiments with which research on different taxa was reported, however. For example, abstracts mentioning lobe finned fishes tended to have high sentiment scores, which could be related to the rediscovery of the coelacanth driving a positive narrative. Contrastingly, abstracts mentioning elasmobranchs had low scores, possibly reflecting the negative sentiment score associated with the word shark. Sentiment analysis has applications in science, especially as it pertains to conservation psychology, and we suggest a new science‐based lexicon be developed specifically for the field of conservation.

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The Lovable, the Loathsome, and the Liminal: Emotionality in Ethnozoological Cognition

Abstract: BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Cited by 16 publications

References 31 publications

Do emotions influence the motivations and preferences of keepers of stingless bees?

Do emotions influence the motivations and preferences of keepers of stingless bees?

To Know Them is to Love Them

Sentiment analysis as a measure of conservation culture in scientific literature

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