Learning to be a human alongside the more-than-human world : navigating information, morality, and sense of self in a social and environmental context
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Humans are unique in our cognitive capacity to understand the nuances of how complex systems function, our ability to attach social, cultural, and symbolic meaning to elements of those systems, and our propensity to self-reflect and experience emotions about our roles in them. These abilities make our lives richer, but also more complicated, as they mean that navigation of the world involves not only procurement of the resources we need to survive but also cognition about those processes, and integration of reasoning, morality, and emotion into our choices. This dissertation examines the processes by which humans navigate the agency and responsibility that come with our human gifts-how we develop ideas about what it means to be a human alongside the more-than-human world, and how those ideas manifest in narratives we create and behaviors we adopt. In Chapter 1, I use semi-structured interviews with visitors to a local farmers' market to explore how people navigate the vast and complicated information landscape to develop mental models of how systems around us work, and how and when we apply those models to real-world decision-making. Chapter 2 focuses more deeply on the role of identity and morality in our understanding of how to interact with the world, using a set of interviews with office workers about their use of paper towels in public restrooms to reveal the various ways we narrate, or rationalize, our quotidian consumption-related behavior. Using video data from cameras worn or carried by hikers in a redwood forest, Chapter 3 explores how the emotional experience of awe in nature influences both how we understand our role in the larger world and how we construct and update our mental models in the face of awe. Taken together, these chapters provide insight into the cognitive and emotional processes that underlie or explain our choices about how to navigate the world. They may inform behavioral and/or educational interventions to help us make more environmentally, but also more psychologically sustainable, choices in a complex world.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Lee, Anna Sabrina |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Algee-Hewitt, Mark |
| Degree supervisor | Ardoin, Nicole M. (Nicole Michele) |
| Thesis advisor | Algee-Hewitt, Mark |
| Thesis advisor | Ardoin, Nicole M. (Nicole Michele) |
| Thesis advisor | Gardner, Christopher |
| Thesis advisor | Williams, Dilafruz R, 1949- |
| Degree committee member | Gardner, Christopher |
| Degree committee member | Williams, Dilafruz R, 1949- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Anna Lee. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/mk576rn6581 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Anna Sabrina Lee
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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