Mongolia field site supervisor Thomas Conte has successfully obtained funding for his dissertation fieldwork from three sources: the National Science Foundation, Fulbright IIE, and the American Center for Mongolian Studies. Tom will be leaving this summer for long term fieldwork in Mongolia’s Darhad Depression, where he will be looking at risk management, cooperation, and sharing among livestock herders.
Blog
Padmini Iyer’s successful dissertation defense
On May 4, 2016, HGP team member and Karamoja field site supervisor Padmini Iyer successfully defended her dissertation, which was titled Risk Management Strategies of Male and Female Pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda. Serving on her committee were her advisor Lee Cronk, Rutgers anthropologists Dorothy Hodgson and Ryne Palombit, and Michael Bollig from the University of Cologne.
Friendly or Phony? My Experience with American Generosity
Friendly or Phony? My Experience with American Generosity
By Olmo van den Akker
The Human Generosity Project
April 22, 2016
On February 1, I arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to start my three-month internship at The Human Generosity Project. I chose to do my internship here because I wanted to learn more about human prosocial behavior and because I really liked the interdisciplinary nature of the project. At the Human Generosity Project I was going to work with psychologists, anthropologists, biologists, and computational modelers, making for some interesting and diverse perspectives on human generosity. In addition, I was keen to live in the United States for a while and to experience first hand the American lifestyle I have seen in so many TV shows and Hollywood movies. In particular, I wanted to find out whether Americans really conform to the stereotype of being friendly, generous, and kind. In fact, you could say that my study of generosity here wasn’t restricted to the lab, but would continue in the stores, bars, and streets of Arizona. And to be fair, I did not have to wait long to encounter my first instance of American kindness.
What are “Need-Based Transfers”?
What are “Need-Based Transfers”?
A Human Generosity Project blog post by Lee Cronk and Athena Aktipis
April 11, 2016
Being a cowboy is a dangerous job. Day-to-day life involves constant grappling with forces much larger than themselves. The ranchers that we study in the Malpai borderlands region of Arizona and New Mexico thrive on their connections to the land and the outdoors, to the uncertain and awesome forces of nature that they experience every day, and to the animals that they ride and care for. But being a rancher also means being exposed to a variety of risks and hazards. Ranchers grapple not just with the uncertainties of the weather and local ecologies, but also with taming and harnessing wild forces that pose serious hazards. Daily interactions with horses, cattle, and heavy machinery all have the potential to injure and even kill, and accidents can happen even when they are taking all the proper precautions.
Risk, Disasters and Need-based Transfers Workshop
HGP and DCDC Workshop 2016: Helping and Resilience in the Face of Disaster
The Human Generosity Project
January 15-16, 2016
The Human Generosity Project team partnered with the Decision Center for a Desert City to host a multidisciplinary workshop in Tempe, Arizona. The workshop served as a platform for discussion on the topic of helping behavior and the enhancement of resilience in the face of environmental uncertainty. Psychologists, anthropologists, engineers, mathematicians, and disaster recovery experts all shared their insights and latest findings in an environment of rich dialog stimulated by a great diversity of perspectives and methodologies.
Mongolia: Cooperation is Preparation
“Cooperation is about preparation:” Preliminary results from the HGP’s Mongolia field site
By Thomas Conte
The Human Generosity Project
September 28, 2015
Mongolia’s 21st century nomadic herders are merging a centuries-old economic tradition with post-2000 tech savvy. Roughly 30% of Mongolia’s population of 2.84 million make their living by migrating each season with herds of horses, goats, sheep, camels, and cattle. This mobile lifestyle often prompts folks in the West to imagine romantic ideas of what it would be like to live in the culture of wandering warriors who conquered most of Eurasia under the leadership of Chinghis Khan and his grandsons. But in 2015 Mongolia, you’re far more likely to see nomadic herders chatting on their iPhones or watching the latest soap opera on satellite TV than you are to see them contemplating the next invasion!
“Neighboring”: generosity in the American Southwest
“Neighboring”: a preliminary look at generosity and mutual aid among ranchers in the American Southwest
By Lee Cronk
The Human Generosity Project
July 17, 2015
Many people dream about being a cowboy, but what is it really like? Here’s how one retired rancher described it: “There are a lot of opportunities to injure yourself.” Another put it even more succinctly: “It is a very dangerous business.” Nevertheless, those who are drawn to ranching and especially those who stick with it all have one thing in common: They absolutely love it, despite the risks and hardships it often entails.
Malpai borderlands site added to the HGP
In October of 2014, Lee Cronk and Athena Aktipis (co-Directors of the HGP) visited the Malpai borderlands region of southern Arizona and New Mexico to explore its suitability for the HGP. They were received warmly by local ranchers and other members of the community and learned a great deal in a short time about both the risks and uncertainties faced by American ranchers and the ways in which they support each other through tough times. Cronk and Aktipis concluded that the Malpai region would provide both some interesting parallels with our East African pastoralist sites and some additional features not found at any of our other sites. These include the risks associated with the work itself – managing cattle in a rugged environment, largely on horseback – and with the ranches’ dependence upon the market economy. After their visit, Cronk and Aktipis decided to make the Malpai borderlands region an official fieldsite of the HGP.
HGP launches
The Human Generosity Project launched in August of 2014, with the goals of enhancing our understanding of why humans share with each other in times of need. Through fieldwork at seven sites around the world, laboratory experiments with human subjects and computational modeling, the HGP leverages disciplinary expertise from many fields to better understand human cooperation. The HGP is generously supported by The Sir John Templeton Foundation, The National Science Foundation, Arizona State University and Rutgers University.