Month: March 2024

Abstract

Gender norms and the experiences of women play a pivotal role in shaping the sustainable outcomes of climate change mitigation and food security efforts, particularly in ecologically sensitive areas like the Himalayas. Despite their significance, these dimensions often remain marginalized in policy formulation processes. This research article aims to address this gap by conducting a cross-sectional study in ten villages within the Himalayan region. The study seeks to achieve two primary objectives: (i) assess the impact of climate-induced emergencies on women, and (ii) analyse the gendered norms influencing food choices, with the intent of identifying gender-inclusive measures for climate adaptation and food security. The research employs a mixed-methodology approach, combining quantitative analysis through household surveys (N = 210) with factor analysis, and qualitative insights derived from thematic analysis. The theoretical framework draws on Bourdieu's concept of "field," enabling a nuanced understanding of varied responses to climate change and their underlying rationales. Findings highlight that gender norms exacerbate the vulnerability of women to the impacts of climate change. Additionally, the research underscores the pivotal role of women's traditional knowledge in fostering sustainable food practices and climate adaptation strategies. This study sheds light on the necessity of integrating gender perspectives into policy formation for effective and equitable climate change adaptation and food security strategies in Himalayan communities. Current research underscores the imperative of recognizing and harnessing the experiences and knowledge of women to create holistic and enduring solutions to climate challenges.

Abstract

People not only judge repeatedly perceived information as more likely being true (the so-called truth effect) they also tend to be more confident after judging the validity of repeated information. These phenomena are assumed to be caused by a higher subjective feeling of ease (i.e., fluency) when processing repeated (vs. new) information. Based on the suggestion that a higher number of coherent mental activations is promoting a fluency experience, we argue that besides repetition an already existing information network, that is (nonspecific) prior knowledge, can enhance fluency. Following this argumentation, information repetition as well as the act of judging incoming information as being true (vs. false) should feed into subjective confidence – independently of the factual truth (when judging under uncertainty). To test this, we reanalyzed two published data sets and conducted a new study. In total, participants (N = 247) gave 29,490 truth judgments and corresponding ratings of subjective confidence while attending two judgement phases (i.e., 10 min and 1 week after the exposure phase in each experiment). Results showed that (a) repetition (in 3 of 3 data sets) and (b) impressions of truth (in 2 of 3 data sets) were systematically related to higher subjective confidence. Moreover, we found (c) a significant positive interaction between repetition and impressions of truth after both intervals in all data sets. Our analyses further underline the moderating effect of time: Influences of repetition significantly decreased with increasing time interval. Notably, the factual truth did not systematically affect any of the above reported effects.