A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia

Bastien Trémolière (1) , Jules Davidoff (2) , Serge Caparos (3, 4)

1 CHROME - Détection, évaluation, gestion des risques CHROniques et éMErgents (CHROME) / Université de Nîmes
2 Goldsmiths College - Goldsmiths, University of London
3 DysCo - Fonctionnement et Dysfonctionnement Cognitifs : Les âges de la vie
4 IUF - Institut universitaire de France

The present research sketches the cognitive portrait of a sample of Himba individuals, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society completely devoid of modern artifacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgment, cooperative behavior, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is associated with a range of demographic variables. Results showed that, overall, the score distributions were remarkably similar across Himba and French participants. There were nevertheless some group differences, with the Himba participants being more intuitive, more religious, happier, less utilitarian and less cooperative than the French participants. The present results provide additional support to the recent line of research targeting cultural variations and similarities, and call for the need to expand psychology research beyond the Western world.

Mots clés: Cross-cultural psychology; Himba of Namibia; thinking style; moral judgement; cooperation; paranormal beliefs; happiness

Domaines: Psychologie

Bastien Trémolière, Jules Davidoff, Serge Caparos. A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia. British Journal of Psychology, 2021, 113 (2), pp.508-530. ⟨10.1111/bjop.12539⟩. ⟨hal-03711112⟩