The Rational Animal: How Evolution Made Us Smarter Than We Think

by Kenrick, Douglas T.

  Whereas the average age of death in America is 75.8 years, one informal study of 321 rock stars found that their average age of death is 36.9 years. Certainly not all rock stars die. When Motley Crüe front man and “Dr. Feelgood” singer Vince Neil crashed his exotic De Tomaso Pantera sports car while driving drunk in 1984, he lived—but he did kill his twenty-five-year-old passenger, Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley. Neil managed to stay alive long enough to file for bankruptcy in 2005, despite selling over 80 million albums in his career.

  Even if you’re not a rock star and don’t always live on the edge, your own fast or slow tendencies are likely etched deep into your psychology. Animal research has found that tendencies imprinted in childhood are most likely to surface in times of stress and uncertainty. In studies with Bonnet macaques, for example, adult monkeys respond to stress very differently depending on their childhood environment. After the monkeys were born, researchers had placed them in different environments. Some were raised in stable and predictable environments (their mothers could obtain food every day in the same place in a predictable manner). Other monkeys were placed in fluctuating environments (the researchers kept switching the locations of their food supply, so that the mothers didn’t know how, where, or when they were going to find food each day). When the monkeys grew up and were exposed to stress as adults, those reared in a consistent and predictable environment coped well and explored multiple ways to deal with the situation; those reared in fluctuating and unpredictable environments panicked.

  Research in Vlad’s laboratory has found a similar pattern in humans. In these studies, some people first read stress-inducing news articles—daunting descriptions of recent economic recessions or increases in homicide. Other people read calming news articles that didn’t induce any stress. Then everyone was asked to make several choices that tapped into desires for risk and willingness to delay gratification. For example, they could choose between receiving some real money for sure versus gambling for a larger amount (would they rather get $25 for sure or have a 50 percent chance of getting $40, for example). Other questions gave them a choice between receiving some money tomorrow versus receiving a much larger amount in the future (would you rather get $25 tomorrow or get $60 in one year, for example).

  When people read the calming news story, their choices were similar regardless of their childhood environment. But reading the stressful news article produced markedly different responses, depending on the person’s childhood environment. People raised in more predictable environments (as measured by having grown up in relatively wealthier homes) responded by adopting a slow strategy, avoiding gambles, and delaying gratification. When stressed out, people who grew up relatively well-off wanted to go slow and steady. By contrast, people raised in less predictable environments (as measured by having grown up in lower-income homes) responded to stress by adopting a faster strategy, preferring the gambles and becoming more impulsive. When stressed out, people who grew up with fewer resources became more risk seeking and impatient.

  Both the studies with monkeys and with humans show that childhood environments influence life history strategies. Although tendencies associated with fast versus slow strategies might be dormant during good times, they emerge in times of stress.

  OFF TO THE RACES

  At the surface level, behaviors associated with fast strategies can seem wildly irrational and foolish. Frittering away $30,000 a year on lottery tickets or buying a $2 million bathtub makes little sense when considered from the rational economist’s perspective. Yet, like many of the other puzzling phenomena discussed in this book, impulsive behavior might reveal a deeper logic when you consider it from the evolutionary psychologist’s perspective.

  Let’s revisit the example of lottery investor Ray Otero. As with MC Hammer, Otero’s behavior is likely rooted in his childhood. Otero grew up poor in Puerto Rico, moving from place to place, and he eventually immigrated to the Bronx. By the time he moved to New York, Otero’s psychology had already been calibrated to follow a fast strategy, but his true colors might not have completely manifested themselves until a particularly stressful local event. Otero was in New York City to witness the horrific tragedy of September 11, 2001—a salient reminder of the fragile nature of life in a dangerous and unpredictable world. It was around this time that he became especially impatient and disenchanted with his long-term prospects and began investing his resources in the lottery—along with the millions of other people who contributed to increasing post-9/11 lottery sales.

  Are Otero and others like him foolish and irrational? It might appear that way to many of his slow strategy neighbors, one of whom described Otero’s behavior as “crazy”—“He’s got a ton of worthless tickets!” But Otero doesn’t see it that way. As he explained to the New York Times, “Working for poor uneducated men is a sucker’s game, where one must run increasingly fast to keep one’s place in line.” From the perspective of someone who has grown up expecting to live in an uncertain and dangerous world, the fruits of a slow, long-term strategy might never be realized. As Otero describes it, “If all you’re doing is working, you’re never going to win.” And for a fast strategist, taking chances for a big win now is better than never even having a shot.

  LIFE HISTORY THEORY highlights that humans proceed through a particular developmental sequence, with different subselves emerging during different life stages. Some people go through this sequence slowly, but others, like Ray Otero, go faster. What do you think Ray Otero would do if he won the lottery? Would he buy a luxury yacht with a gold toilet? As we’ll describe next, he might instead invest in a green Toyota Prius, but not because of its fuel efficiency.

  7

  Gold Porsches and Green Peacocks

  WHEN THE EDITORS OF Consumer Reports prepare their annual list of “Best Buys,” they are unlikely even to consider the Porsche Carrera GT. The vehicle has very little cargo capacity and only two seats, gets terrible gas mileage, and is frightfully expensive to repair. Whereas $15,900 could buy you the top-rated consumer-pleasing Honda Civic, which has more cargo capacity, better mileage, and room for three more passengers, the Porsche will run you over $480,000, not counting the $14,800 dealer prep charge and the $5,000 delivery fee. And if you think that sounds like a lot of dough, the standard price wasn’t high enough for one fellow—a Russian man had his Porsche meticulously plated with over forty pounds of gold. Why would anyone shell out so much money for a speedy sports car and then spend even more to weigh it down with a layer of heavy metal?

  In his 1899 classic The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to refer to people’s tendency to buy and show off expensive goods—with the goal of impressing other people with their wealth or status. The gold-plated Porsche may seem like an extreme example of this phenomenon, but it pales in comparison to other acts of extravagance. Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis’s opulent yacht was larger than a football field and featured a mosaic-tiled dance floor that could be retracted to reveal a swimming pool. The barstools on the boat were covered in garishly expensive soft leather, custom made from the foreskins of whale penises. And the excess even extended into the bathroom—the toilet fixtures were made of solid gold!

  Conspicuous consumption is not some rare phenomenon found only among the superrich. Thousands of young people scraping by in poverty-ridden housing projects expend their scarce dollars on gaudy jewelry and $200 sneakers. In one popular hip-hop song, the rappers proudly show off their diamond-encrusted gold and platinum “grillz,” devoting a good portion of the lyrics to bragging about how much cash they dropped for these custom-made retainer-like decorations on their front teeth. While a Porsche Carrera can at least transport you to your destination, a set of diamond-encrusted grillz is worse than useless. Not only are they a handicap when eating and closing your mouth, but as one of the rappers observes, wearing them is like “chewin’ on aluminum foil.”

  Why do people spend money they don’t really have
on things they don’t really need to impress people they don’t really like or know? Here we examine the deeper reasons behind conspicuous consumption. By looking under the surface, we will discover something very important: we often don’t really know why we do the things we do. Although we’re aware of some of the surface motives for our actions, the deep-seated evolutionary motives often remain inaccessible, buried behind the scenes in the subconscious workings of our brains’ ancient mechanisms. This is important because it means that asking people why they throw money around the way they do will rarely yield the underlying evolutionary reason. But by knowing where to look, we can see our subselves pulling the purse strings.

  WHY DO WE THROW MONEY AWAY?

  An abundant literature on excessive consumerism paints the following picture: conspicuous consumption is rampant in American culture, and it is linked to materialism, which is promoted by the American media. American television, movies, and magazines depict attractive and fast-living people sporting a hyperabundance of expensive material possessions. Bedecked in designer clothes and shiny jewels, these showy characters drive top-end luxury cars from their well-appointed beachside homes to chic urban bistros, where they bask in the company of crowds of other glamorous high rollers. One need merely turn on the television or drop in at a nearby movie house to find abundant evidence consistent with this cultural media explanation of materialism and conspicuous consumption.

  Social scientists point out that this kind of Western materialism is not only rampant but harmful, leading people to de-emphasize personal relationships, feel decreased satisfaction with their incomes, and reduce their charitable giving, as they greedily pursue more wealth, bigger houses, and more expensive cars. Even worse, poor people are seduced by these glamorized images into foregoing life’s necessities so that they can scrape together enough money to make a credit card payment on frivolous luxuries.

  American culture is no doubt materialistic to a fault, but is that the primary cause of conspicuous consumption? On closer examination, there’s a very big problem with the cultural explanation. These same excessively showy phenomena, although abundantly visible in American society, can also be found in other societies. From Argentina to Zanzibar and everywhere in between, people flaunt their wealth. In fact, in developing his classic work on conspicuous consumption over a century ago, Thorstein Veblen had already observed that people around the world have paraded their luxury possessions throughout human history.

  The pharaohs of ancient Egypt, who, as far as we know, had never seen a single episode of MTV Cribs, nevertheless conspicuously displayed their wealth with golden thrones, elaborate artworks, and giant pyramids. And long before the advent of Better Homes and Gardens, In-can potentates dwelled in immense palaces surrounded by gold, and Indian maharajahs built extravagant and ostentatious palaces on expansive estates, where they kept collections of rare and exotic animals. Conspicuous displays of wealth were also abundant in feudal Europe, imperial China, and ancient Japan, where wealthy nobles constructed lavish castles filled with gold, jewels, and beautiful works of art. And these extravagances were not limited to the grand societies of history. Even among traditional people living in the remote regions of Melanesia, Iceland, and Amazonia, those who had wealth flaunted it. Rather than pointing to modern Western culture as the main reason for conspicuous consumption, anthropologists and historians have discovered that ostentatious displays of wealth have occurred in every corner of the globe for millennia.

  So if we can’t blame American culture, what’s responsible for conspicuous consumption? Another explanation comes from our friends the economists. University of Leicester economist Gianni De Fraja notes, “Conspicuous consumption for its own sake enhances utility.” But as De Fraja points out, the insight that conspicuous consumption stems from a desire to enhance “utility” is woefully unsatisfying and incomplete. Sure, we will pay good money for things that we expect to be satisfying in some way and not for others that we don’t. But we need to explain why people believe some conspicuous things, and not others, will bring them satisfaction. Why exactly is it that people are willing to trade food, shelter, and health care to possess a luxury good, which may have no survival value at all?

  Economists have never been much concerned with the roots of our preferences, generally ignoring the question of why we desire one thing as opposed to another. But without a better account of what people find satisfying and why, the argument that our choices stem from a desire to maximize utility is circular. How do we know something enhances utility? Because people are willing to pay for it. Why are people willing to pay more for some things? Because those things enhance utility. Much like explanations that point to culture, explanations that point to utility are not very useful for understanding the deeper reasons for behavior.

  ARE WE OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE CAUSES OF OUR OWN BEHAVIOR?

  One reasonable method for determining what motivates people’s choices is simply to ask them. After some introspection, perhaps they will be able to reveal their real reasons for tricking out their Porsches or dropping cash on diamond-encrusted grillz.

  Asking people about their needs and wants is common practice, with many businesses running focus groups, conducting interviews, and gathering surveys to better understand their clients’ desires. But there is a key presumption behind asking people to explain the reasons for their behavior: that people know why they do things. This presumption might seem utterly reasonable, except that a mountain of carefully controlled scientific studies show that people are often completely clueless when it comes to explaining the reasons for their behavior. In study after study, people are superb at providing elaborate explanations for why they made a certain choice, but after reviewing the evidence, psychologists Richard Nisbett and Tim Wilson observe that we are a bit too adept at “telling more than we can know.” Humans are simply not wired to be conscious of all the reasons they do things. This hidden wiring poses a real problem in uncovering the deeper motives underlying behavior.

  Consider the reason why over 1 million Americans have bought a Toyota Prius, a popular hybrid gas-electric car. One of the most vocal Prius owners has been Hollywood leading man Leonardo DiCaprio, who proudly proclaimed early on, “I own a Toyota Prius. It’s a step in the right direction.” Because the Prius has lower emissions, it produces a smaller carbon footprint than conventional combustion engine cars. This is important to DiCaprio and to many of his Prius-owning celebrity pals, such as Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, Woody Harrelson, Bill Maher, and Seinfeld creator Larry David, all of whom are staunch environmentalists. DiCaprio even has his own foundation for environmental awareness, spending his free time lobbying to ban the sale of shark fins in California and bringing portable solar panels to power his movie sets, such as during filming of the blockbuster film Inception. In 2007, DiCaprio and former US vice president Al Gore even drove Priuses to the Academy Awards.

  But to find out why normal people want the Prius, we need to get off Hollywood Boulevard and ask regular folk why they really buy hybrids. It just so happens that a 2007 study by the Topline Strategy Group called “Why People Really Buy Hybrids” asked Prius owners just such a question: “What was your primary motivation for buying the Prius?” The responses couldn’t have been clearer. The overwhelming majority, 66 percent, said they bought a Prius because they wanted to be environmentally friendly. Like Leonardo DiCaprio, most people say they drive a Prius because they want to do their part for the environment.

  But while many people say they buy the Prius to do good for the environment, is this really their reason? Vlad and his colleagues Josh Tybur and Bram Van den Bergh suspected that there might be a different motive at play, one involving the status subself. Rather than seeking to help Mother Nature, is it possible that people are instead seeking to help themselves—by going green to be seen?

  To test this idea, the researchers had people choose between two cars: a luxurious nongreen model and an equivalently priced but less luxurious green hybrid. Fo
r example, people could choose between two versions of the Honda Accord, each costing $30,000. The nongreen version was a top-of-the-line EX-L model with a sporty V6 engine, leather seats, and all the desirable trimmings offered by the manufacturer. The alternative option was a Honda Accord hybrid. This option did not have the same level of luxury or performance, but it sported an enticing “H” (for “hybrid”) on the back of the car, publicly proclaiming the owner’s environmental concern and awareness.

  Before people made their choices, however, the researchers activated the status subself in half of the study participants. These subjects read a short story in which they imagined arriving for their first day at a high-powered job. Impressed by the upscale lobby and well-appointed decor, they learned that they would be competing with several others for an opportunity to move into a prestigious corner office. Much like reading a biography of a highly successful individual, envisioning this scenario lights a flame in the mind, putting the status subself squarely in charge and producing a subconscious desire to move up in the status hierarchy. After having read the story, people make choices that will get them status.

  The study revealed that people’s car choices changed dramatically when the status subself was driving. Without a desire for status, most people chose the top-of-the-line combustion car model over the dinkier hybrid. But when the inner go-getter was in charge, people’s choices reversed. More than half of the status-minded people chose the hybrid. In fact, these go-getters also preferred other green products such as ecologically friendly dishwashers and recycled backpacks over their conventional counterparts.