The Elephant in the Brain_Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

by Robin Hanson

  CHAPTER 10

  1Keynes 1931, 358–73.

  2Of note,

  A Harvard Business School survey of 1,000 professionals found that 94% worked at least 50 hours a week, and almost half worked more than 65 hours. Other research shows that the share of college-educated American men regularly working more than 50 hours a week rose from 24% in 1979 to 28% in 2006. According to a recent survey, 60% of those who use smartphones are connected to work for 13.5 hours or more a day. European labour laws rein in overwork, but in Britain four in ten managers, victims of what was once known as ‘the American disease,’ say they put in more than 60 hours a week. (The Economist 2014)

  3Another important way we compete for status is by doing prestigious work—conspicuous production alongside conspicuous consumption. See, e.g., Avent 2016. Or as Venkatesh Rao says, “We ‘shop around’ for careers. We look for prestigious brands to work for. We look for ‘fulfillment’ at work. Sometimes we even accept pay cuts to be associated with famous names. This is work as fashion accessory and conversation fodder” (Rao 2013). In this chapter, however, we focus only on the consumption side of the equation.

  4In fact, Veblen foresaw exactly this “rebuttal” to Keynes. He writes, “As increased industrial efficiency makes it possible to procure the means of livelihood with less labor, the energies of the industrious members of the community are bent to the compassing of a higher result in conspicuous expenditure, rather than slackened to a more comfortable pace” (Veblen 2013, ch. 5).

  5Our emotions and thinking habits are so well trained, and so finely calibrated to our wealth and social setting, that we’re able to make purchasing decisions more or less on autopilot. It’s only by getting outside ourselves, then—by taking other perspectives or imagining choices we wouldn’t make—that we’re able to glimpse the big-picture logic behind our decisions.

  6Griskevicius, Tybur, and Van den Bergh 2010; see also Kenrick and Griskevicius 2013, 147–50.

  7To prime with a status-seeking motive, subjects were asked to read a short imaginative scenario about their first day at a new job in which they were eager to impress their boss and move up the corporate ladder.

  8Griskevicius et al. 2010.

  9DeMuro 2013.

  10Sexton and Sexton 2014.

  11Per Miller:

  [T]he key traits that we strive to display are the stable traits that differ most between individuals and that most strongly predict our social abilities and preferences. These include physical traits, such as health, fertility, and beauty; personality traits, such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to novelty; and cognitive traits, such as general intelligence. These are the biological virtues that people try to broadcast, with the unconscious function of attracting respect, love, and support from friends, mates, and allies. Displaying such traits is the key ‘latent motive’ that marketers strive to comprehend. (2009, 15)

  12Of course, it’s not nearly so simple, and many historical contingencies (like denim’s use in the American Wild West) help account for the symbolic value of blue jeans. For more, see Davis 1994, 69–77.

  13Schor 1998, 48, 54.

  14Teenagers are acutely aware of these cultural associations, largely because they’re in the process of constructing their lifestyle identities and finding friends who respond positively to them. But established adults are often nestled too snugly in their cultural niches to notice just how carefully they’ve been chosen.

  15Obviously this thought experiment doesn’t cover shared experiences like dining out, going to concerts with friends, travel experiences, etc.

  16Miller 2009, 20; Schor 1998, 45–7; see also, Chwe 2001, 47, 49, for a distinction between “social” and “non-social” goods. Chwe lumps network-effect goods like Xboxes and credit cards in the “social” category.

  17You might argue that we appreciate our own jewelry, but such enjoyment is, in part, the joy of imagining how others will react to it.

  18Cf. Veblen: “The domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the éclat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers” (2013, ch. 5).

  19“The infrequency with which people repeat wardrobe choices is another class marker—at a special occasion, to have one’s dress remarked on as a repeat is an embarrassment among the better-heeled (note the term, by the way). To wear the same clothes to the office too often is a taboo” (Schor 1998, 37).

  20Schor 1998, 56–60.

  21As of January 1, 2017, a four-pack of black Hanes Men’s ComfortSoft T-Shirts was priced at $15.42.

  22“Although these signaling links must be commonly understood by the consumer’s socially relevant peer group, they need not involve the actual product at all” (Miller 2009, 97–98).

  23Hollis 2011.

  24Davison 1983.

  25Miller 2009, 98; Chwe 2001, 38.

  26Chan 2009.

  27Marketed as Lynx in the United Kingdom.

  28Schor 1998, 45–48.

  29Nielsen (2016) gives 54.3 million homes for Superbowl 50 on February 7, 2016.

  30There are other differences too, of course.

  31Chwe 2001, 37–60. It’s not nearly so simple, of course, as there are confounding factors like the prestige of highly popular TV programs. But Chwe argues convincingly that advertisers pay more-than-linearly based on audience size (see Chwe 2001, 49–60). Some of this, certainly, is due to network effects other than social signaling. Xbox, for example, needs to create a lot of buy-in from gamers in order to also convince video game studios to make games for their platform. Per Chwe: “Fisher, McGowan, and Evans (1980) find that local television station revenue increases not only in the total number of households viewing but also in the square of the total number of households viewing. Similarly, Ottina (1995, p. 7) finds that the larger the local television market, the more advertising revenue is generated per household. Wirth and Bloch (1985, p. 136) find that the rates charged by local stations for a spot on the program MASH increase more than linearly in the number of viewing households” (2001, 60).

  32“All ads effectively have two audiences: potential product buyers, and potential product viewers who will credit the product owners with various desirable traits” (Miller 2009, 99).

  33Miller 2009, 99.

  CHAPTER 11

  1E. O. Wilson 2012, 279; Miller 2000, 260.

  2Aubert et al. 2014.

  3Balter 2009: engravings; Power 1999, 92–12: red ocher body art.

  4Brown 1991, 140.

  5Dissanayake 1980.

  6Ibid.

  7Gallie 1955.

  8Dissanayake 1980; Eibl-Eibesfeldt 2009, 677.

  9Changizi 2010.

  10“We use function here in its biological sense. Put simply, a function of a trait is an effect of that trait that causally explains its having evolved and persisted in a population: Thanks to this effect, the trait has been contributing to the fitness of organisms endowed with it” (Mercier and Sperber 2011).

  11Pinker 1997, 534.

  12Brown 1991, 140; Dissanayake 1988; Dissanayake 1992, by way of Miller 2000, 259.

  13From Miller: “In his 1897 book The Beginnings of Art, Ernst Grosse commented on art’s wastefulness, claiming that natural selection would ‘long ago have rejected the peoples which wasted their force in so purposeless a way, in favor of other peoples of practical talents; and art could not possibly have been developed so highly and richly as it has been’ ” (2000, 260).

  14Dissanayake 1988, 1992.

  15Cochran and Harpending 2009.

  16Rowland 2008, 1. All but three species are polygamous and bower-building. Miller 2000, 268.

  17Miller 2000, 268.

  18Rowland 2008, 1.

  19Miller 2000, 269.

  20Borgia 1985.

  21Zahavi 2003.

  22Male bowerbirds also need to develop their taste for a good-looking bower, both in order to construct one themselves and to know which of their rivals’ bowers to bother sabotag
ing. And like the females, they do this by visiting the bowers of other males. In fact, before they mature, male bowerbirds are almost indistinguishable from the females, and often pose as suitors to inspect the bowers of their future rivals.

  23Uy, Patricelli, and Borgia 2000.

  24Although cf. Miller’s observation that “sexually mature males have produced almost all of the publicly displayed art throughout human history” (2000, 275).

  25Sometimes called “fitness indicators.” See, e.g., Miller 2009, 12–13, 90–92.

  26Miller 2009, 100–104. Other fitness-display functions include soliciting support from family members, deterring predators and parasites, and intimidating rival groups.

  27Miller: “A burning sensation does not carry an intellectual message saying ‘By the way, this spinal reaction evolved to maximize the speed of withdrawing your extremities from local heat sources likely to cause permanent tissue damage injurious to your survival prospects.’ It just hurts, and the hand withdraws from the flame” (2000, 275–76).

  28We might even include the painting’s frame, the lighting used to illuminate it, and the wall it’s displayed on, since they’re also part of the overall perceptual experience of a painting.

  29Smith and Newman 2014.

  30Newman and Bloom 2012 provide experimental data showing that laypeople place significantly less value on replicas compared to originals.

  31Prinz 2013.

  32Miller 2000, 281.

  33Ibid., 282.

  34Wallace 2004.

  35Lewis 2002, 317.

  36Miller 2000, 286.

  37Ibid., 286–87; Benjamin 1936.

  38Veblen 2013, ch. 6.

  39Miller 2000, 287.

  40For more on synthetic gemstones, see Miller 2009, 95.

  41Trufelman 2015.

  42Lurie 1981, 138–39.

  43Ibid., 115–53.

  CHAPTER 12

  1Singer 1999.

  2Singer 1972.

  3Using the estimated cost of $200,000 for four years’ worth of college, divided by GiveWell’s estimate that you can save a child’s life in Malawi or the Democratic Republic of Congo for around $3,500 per child (GiveWell 2016).

  4Singer 2009, 81–4.

  5Ibid.

  6Ibid.

  7“We estimate the cost per child life saved . . . at about $3,500” (GiveWell 2016). Note that these estimates from GiveWell fluctuate periodically as they update their models.

  8Singer 2015.

  9White 1989, 65–71; see also Sullivan 2002 (as cited in Peloza and Steel 2005).

  10Giving USA 2015.

  11Americans donated $358 billion to charity in 2014 (Giving USA 2015). In 2013, $39 billion of that went to help developing countries. These figures are for private donations. In 2011, the federal government provided an additional $31 billion in foreign aid (not all of which is directed toward humanitarian causes; Center for Global Prosperity 2013).

  12Hope Consulting 2010.

  13Desvousges et al. 1992.

  14Kahneman and Frederick 2002.

  15Baron and Szymanska 2011; Fox, Ratner, and Lieb 2005.

  16Miller 2000, 323.

  17Ibid.

  18Or in the economic parlance, “to provision public goods.”

  19Andreoni 1989, 1990.

  20From Baron and Szymanska (2011): “The magnitude of the glow may be roughly constant for each act of contributing (Margolis, 1982).”

  21Technically, Andreoni’s model is agnostic about the “why” behind the warm glow. This isn’t a criticism of Andreoni’s model per se, but an attempt to spur us to ask the questions that the warm glow theory ignores. See Niehaus 2013 for another example of a “warm glow”–type shallow psychological explanation.

  22Jackson and Latané 1981.

  23Bull and Gibson-Robinson 1981.

  24Hoffman, McCabe, and Smith 1996.

  25Haley and Fessler 2005; Rigdon et al. 2009. Note that Nettle et al. (2013) found that eyespots increased the probability that someone will donate, but not the average amount that people donate.

  26Grace and Griffin 2006; Miller 2000, 323.

  27Glazer and Konrad 1996.

  28Andreoni and Petrie 2004.

  29Miller 2000, 323.

  30Glazer and Konrad 1996; Harbaugh 1998.

  31Polonsky, Shelley, and Voola 2002.

  32Bekkers 2005; see also Bryant et al. 2003.

  33Bekkers 2005.

  34Carman 2003.

  35Ibid.

  36Meer 2011.

  37Baron and Szymanska 2011 (emphasis in the original was rendered in capital letters rather than italics).

  38Giving USA 2015.

  39Charness and Gneezy 2008. Giving names makes people more generous in the Dictator Game, but not the Ultimatum Game.

  40Schelling, Bailey, and Fromm 1968. Even without identifying information, people are more generous when the recipients of their generosity are already determined, versus when the recipients will be determined in the future. See Small and Loewenstein 2003.

  41O’Toole 2010b.

  42United Way 2016.

  43Barrett 2015.

  44Kiva 2017.

  45“Using $5.31 as the average cost per net in the countries that AMF is considering future distributions in, we estimate the cost per child life saved through an AMF-funded LLIN [long-lasting insecticide-treated net] distribution at about $2,838” (Givewell 2016).

  46West and Brown 1975; Landry et al. 2005.

  47Iredale, Van Vugt, and Dunbar 2008.

  48Griskevicius, Tybur, and Sundie 2007.

  49A recent meta-analysis (Shanks et al. 2015) has cast doubt on experiments that find behavioral effects from “romantic priming.” So we should take Griskevicius’s experiment with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the finding is consistent with other results, such as the fact that men donate more to attractive female solicitors.

  50Subjects weren’t asked about donating money, but rather about volunteer work (like helping at a homeless shelter) and acts of heroism (like saving someone from drowning). Men and women showed different patterns in the kinds of altruism they displayed: Men were more likely to act heroically, while women were more likely to be generous with their time. Subjects were also asked about show-offy purchases, and men’s attitudes toward these purchases (relative to women’s attitudes) were more affected by the mating motive.

  51West 2004.

  52“[W]hen a millionaire does not really care whether his money does good or not, provided he finds his conscience eased and his social status improved by giving it away, it is useless for me to argue with him. I mention him only as a warning to the better sort of donors that the mere disbursement of large sums of money must be counted as a distinctly suspicious circumstance in estimating personal character. Money is worth nothing to the man who has more than enough, and the wisdom with which it is spent is the sole social justification for leaving him in possession of it” (Shaw, quoted in Finch 2010, 298).

  53Emerson 1995, 298.

  54As early as the 12th century, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides distinguished various “levels of charity” in part based on how anonymous the donor was. Acts of charity in which the donor is known to the recipient were considered less noble than anonymous acts.

  55You’ll have to forgive evolutionary psychology for being heteronormative. The field doesn’t really understand homosexuality (yet).

  56This view finds additional support from surveys and lab studies. See Bekkers and Wiepking 2011, sec. 5.

  57However questionable Mother Teresa’s actual track record may be.

  58Boehm 1999, 70–2.

  59Glazer and Konrad 1996.

  60IGN is the Iodine Global Network, which, as it happens, is one of GiveWell’s most recommended charities. Iodine deficiency can lead to cognitive impairment, especially in children, and it’s one of the most easily preventable health problems. IGN adds iodine to salt for something like a dime per person per year.

  61Of course, this doesn’t imply that
people who donate strategically lack compassion—not by a long shot. It’s simply that planned donations don’t allow us to demonstrate involuntary compassion, so to the extent that we do plan our donations, we don’t earn as many social rewards for it.

  62Kornhaber 2015.

  63The quote can be reasonably attributed to him, but not the exact phrasing. See O’Toole 2013.

  64Collins 2011. After the first 100 years, some of the funds were to be left compounding for another 100 years.

  65Hanson 2012.

  CHAPTER 13

  1In the literature, this is call the “human capital model.” In other words, school is a place where students go to develop their human capital, i.e., skills, knowledge, habits, etc.

  2Gioia 2016: admission statistics; Belkin and Korn 2015: tuition facts.

  3We take these values from Caplan 2017, who in turn drew them from supplementary data for Carnevale, Rose, and Cheah 2011 (supplied by Stephen Rose).

  4The raw data comes from Snyder and Dillow 2011, 228–30, 642. Caplan 2017 (preprint): judgment of (non)utility. Of course, some of these subjects may be personally rewarding to students, but they’re of very little use in explaining why employers value a high school education.

  5Snyder and Dillow 2011, 412: raw data; Caplan 2017 (preprint): judgment of (non)utility.

  6Caplan 2017 (preprint) (quote is elided between “psychologists” and “have measured”). “For overviews, see Detterman and Sternberg 1993 and Haskell 2000. Barnett and Ceci 2002 is an excellent critical review of this massive literature” (ibid.).

  7Pfeffer and Sutton 2006, 38; Hayek et al. 2015.

  8Eren and Henderson 2011.

  9Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel 2014.

  10See Gwern 2016.

  11Edwards 2012; see also Carrell, Maghakian, and West 2011, which found that a 50-minute delay in start times was as effective (in improving student performance) as a one standard deviation increase in teacher quality.

  12Clearly there are many factors at play here (busing schedules, after-school programs, etc.), but there’s rarely any acknowledgment that trade-offs against learning are being made.