The Role of Economic Culture in Social Relationships and Interdependence

In this chapter, Uskul focuses on how the economic environment may shape social interdependence, thereby leading to certain ways of thinking and behaving. Summarizing two lines of research, she discusses the role of social interdependence shaped by economic requirements for consequences for cognitive tendencies in three economic groups (fishermen, herders, and farmers) and for responses to others’ social exclusion experiences among children in two economic communities (farmers and herders). In a third line of research, she highlights the important role that certain individuals play in the economic livelihood of certain groups (e.g., strangers) by demonstrating relevant psychological consequences thereof for responses to social exclusion. The summarized research provides evidence that economic activity, shaped by ecology, is associated with important differences in different aspects of human psychology and contributes to the limited psychological research conducted with understudied communities outside of Western cultural contexts.