Human Dimensions That Drive Soil Degradation - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 182

limited attention and memory (Simon 1959; March 1994; Kahneman 2003). As a
consequence, humans often use heuristics, or rules of thumb, to help simplify the
decision making process (Kleindorfer 1999). In the face of both complexity and
constraints, farmers are often forced to simplify the decision making process. On
the one hand, farmers are participating in the complex and unpredictable rhythms of
the agroecosystem, while on the other hand, available resources, regulations, and the
physical properties of the farm restrict their options within this system.
Because conditions set by the farm parameters and farm attributes are less than
ideal, farmers exhibit clear use of “satisficing” in their decision making process.
Satisficing describes choice behavior as one that only satisfies an individual's most
important concerns (Simon 1959), whether those concerns are economic, ecological,
social, or agricultural, rather than maximizing expected utility across all preferences.
7.4.7.5 Dual Processing
Descriptive models such as dual processing recognize the vital role of risk percep-
tions, affect, and emotion in the decision making process without ignoring the role
of analytical processing. Affect is defined as a feeling of “goodness” or “badness”
about weeds and weed management built up over time through each farmer's expe-
rience. Dual process models describe human decision making as a combination of
experiential/emotionally based, or affective, thought processes (system 1) and delib-
erative, analytical thinking (system 2) (Damasio 1994; Epstein 1994; Kahneman
2003). System 1 is the first response to a risk and often includes heuristics, or rules
of thumb, based on experience and affect in order to simplify and speed up decisions.
According to dual process theory, a balance between systems 1 and 2 is neces-
sary for rational decisions. Both systems provide types of information that guide and
motivate the decision making process (Plous 1993; Kahneman 2003; Peters 2008).
In the absence of experience and/or emotional system (system 1), a decision maker
would be unable to choose efficiently between different options in simple decisions
(Damasio 1994; Hsee 1996), while the absence of the analytical system (system 2)
would cause an individual to become narrow-minded and fail to consider more ben-
eficial options. These two systems influence decision processes concerning a risk
that an individual cares about such as soil health or economic viability.
7.5 CONCLUSION
Human dimensions encompass many aspects of human behavior. Scientific stud-
ies encompassing human-ecological systems have yielded a variety of models to
describe the interrelations among many variables. It is evident that a wide range of
social science disciplines can inform our understanding of human dimensions that
lead to soil degradation. Contributions to knowledge described in this chapter come
from political science, economics, geography, planning, rural sociology, religious
studies, sociology, decision science, forestry, demography, history, environmental
management, and psychology, among other fields.
Knowing that proximate causes are themselves caused by precursor variables can
help us understand some otherwise puzzling choices made by land managers. In
particular, it can help us see that proposed solutions that fail to address the precursor