Title
Influence of the Expert Effect on Cultural Models
Date Issued
03 March 2016
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Van Holt T.
Bernard H.R.
Weller S.
Townsend W.
Center for International Forestry Research
Publisher(s)
Routledge
Abstract
We examined hunters’ perceptions of fauna to see if expert hunters and other hunters perceive wildlife abundance similarly. We used cultural consensus analysis (CCA) to assess the knowledge of 25 hunters in the Bolivian Amazon about the abundance of 38 animals. CCA indicated highly shared beliefs among hunters concerning wildlife abundance (average agreement = .62). However, expert hunters (as judged by their reported successful hunts of rare species, having hunted recently, and consuming more game in their diet) perceived more animals as abundant than did non-experts, although they all shared the same model. Since the expert hunters did not always agree on which species was more abundant, they had low cultural knowledge scores in CCA results. These experts may be unwilling to curtail hunting efforts on key species that they perceive to be abundant.
Start page
169
End page
179
Volume
21
Issue
2
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Psicología Sociología Antropología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84958537107
Source
Human Dimensions of Wildlife
ISSN of the container
10871209
DOI of the container
10.1080/10871209.2015.1110736
Source funding
University of Florida
Global Economic Dynamics
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Sponsor(s)
This work was supported by the Coca Cola World Citizenship Program at the University of Florida and the Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere Program of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. IRB approval was obtained from the University of Florida
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus