Tuesday 9 April 2019

executive function

Whereas most research studies have operated under the assumption that by examining the WEIRDs (that is—Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) we are looking at representatives of humanity as a whole, the cognitive flexibilities demonstrated by populations subject to less stable environments where repetition and conservative behaviour are less tenable are causing ethnographers and psychologists to confront their institutional biases.
Secure in our routines, we adopt one cognitive set, informed by past success and a predictable present context, instead of being receptive to set-shifting, since there’s little sense or economy in reinventing the wheel and expending the mental energies needed for that task, but people like the semi-nomadic Himba of Namibia are rewarded for their mental limberness and willingness to pursue new and novel strategies.