To simplify and over-generalize, the researchers found that when they assigned a simple visual problem to the Himba and to a group of Westerners, the Himba were more cognitively flexible in terms of adopting helpful strategies.
Why does that matter and what has it to do with climate change? The researchers believed that in a dynamic environment, where circumstances can change at the drop of a hat, abandoning the “groove” you had been in and trying something new may have critical survival benefits. But our Western, cultural bias favoring the time-honored and familiar can make it difficult to move out of our comfort zone and leap into the unknown. In other words, our Western, energy intensive lifestyles clearly offer benefits but those benefits may come at the cost of less flexible thinking. Aha.
And so we arrive at climate change.
We live in an environment that is experiencing dynamic change, in this case global warming. But most developed countries, the ones injecting the most CO2 into the atmosphere, are largely Westernized, having internalized Western cultural processes. Meaning their citizens are loath to change the way they have been doing things because they are focused on the familiar. Like depending on fossil fuels to sustain their daily lives and their comfortable and comforting lifestyles.
The lead researcher in the cited study believes that a better understanding of the relationship between education and creative problem solving could help determine how to get past the Western fixation on what is familiar to us. It may then be possible to apply the results of that future research to address the climate change challenge.
But, the big question is: Since most Westernized countries, especially the U.S., seem unwilling to engage in policies or actions that would aggressively abate global warming, do we have the time?
My best guess is that most Americans would favor government policies that curtail CO2 emissions, especially if their lifestyles were unaffected. Otherwise, it's an iffy proposition, which makes me glad I'm in my mid-70s and won't live to see what the mid-term future brings.
Pope, Sarah M., Joël Fagot, Adrien Meguerditchian, David A. Washburn, and William D. Hopkins. 2018. Enhanced Cognitive Flexibility in the Seminomadic Himba. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 50(1): 47-62. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022022118806581?journalCode=jcca
News Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/04/07/704853100/why-the-semi-nomadic-himba-are-so-good-at-thinking-outside-the-box
