EDITOR Eli Blevis eblevis@indiana.edu
University of California, Irvine | wmt@uci.edu
Biological researchers have suggested that the phenomenon of conspicuous consumption [ 1, 2] can be an evolutionarily viable survival technique. Conspicuous consumption can enhance an organism’s fitness because it demonstrates that the organism has sufficient resources to live, and then some. This abundance of resources suggests to other members of the organism’s community that he or she may be a valuable social or sexual partner, with sufficient resources to squander some on goals beyond mere survival [ 1].
Two forms of conspicuous consumption are particularly notable. “Sexual handicapping” involves an individual exhibiting resource-inten-sive behavior or morphology in order to communicate his or her (but usually his) good genes [ 1]. For example, the brightly colored tails of many birds are a significant handicap to those organisms; the tails require a lot of energy to produce (since bright pigments are energy intensive), and make it harder for the organisms to survive (since predators can see them). A bright tail conveys unequivocally that the bird sporting it is a “winner,” with sufficiently abundant resources to have reached maturity despite the encumbrance of the tail, and is therefore a prime mate.
A second form of conspicuous consumption is “competitive altruism [ 2]”. In this behavioral pattern, organisms behave in prosocial ways, issuing alarm calls or saving the offspring of other members of their community, in order to demonstrate their abundance of resources. Similar to sexual handicapping, competitive altruism is a drain on the resources of the individual and marks that individual as a high-quality social or reproductive partner.
There are several characteristics that make an attribute or behavior a good vehicle for exhibiting
conspicuous consumption. It must be obvious, so that other members of the target community can easily recognize it. It must be accurate; community members must be able to use it to evaluate the relative merits of different individuals. And it must be unfakeable; that is, it must be easier for the organism to exhibit the attribute or behavior than to exhibit an indistinguishable facsimile of that behavior [ 1].
Like many other animal species, humans exhibit a tendency for conspicuous consumption [ 3]. To an evolutionary biologist, a BMW looks a lot like a peacock’s tail. The bird’s tail is obvious; so too is the Beemer’s logo and characteristic body shapes—visible on the highway, in the driveway, and on a date. The bird’s tail requires the expenditure of significant resources. So too does the BMW; no resource-poor losers here. Finally, the bird cannot attach a fake tail to itself; neither is it viable to manufacture a fake BMW, with glossy paint and carefully tuned engine. Thus, a BMW has a lot in common with a brightly colored tail; in both cases, the owner is clearly an excellent mate choice.
Similarly, people engage in competitive altruism in a range of ways. The high-end grocery store Whole Foods has begun selling an organic cotton and burlap bag with a large logo reading “Feed the Children of the World” on it. To own this bag, a shopper must pay $29.95, $10 of which will be donated to the World Food Program’s Rwanda School Feeding operation. This amount is sufficient to provide 100 meals to school-age children in Rwanda. This demonstration of resource abundance may not only make the bearer feel good, but it may also cause others to consider them worthy social or sexual partners. (While one might find charity irrelevant to sexual ends,
[ 1] Zahavi, A. and A. Zahavi. The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin’s Puzzle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
[ 2] Roberts, G. “Competitive altruism: from reciprocity to the handicap principle,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 265, no. 1394 (1998).
[ 3] Veblen, T. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, 1912.
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