Sexual selection of conspicuous consumption

Recently, a number of papers draw upon ideas from sexual selection and costly signaling theory to argue that conspicuous consumption has evolved as a sexually selected mating strategy. I outline what are considered to be the criteria for arguing that a trait is the outcome of sexual selection and I explore whether conspicuous consumption is sexual adaptation. Though I share the insight that evolutionary theory can contribute to our understanding of consumption behavior, I argue that existing evolutionary explanations of conspicuous consumption do not examine human evolved psychology and available evidence about past environments. I further argue that cultural evolution theory provides an alternative explanation of conspicuous consumption in modern environments. In particular, conspicuous consumption is understood as a pattern of behavior marked by specific social learning mechanisms. Such an approach reflects the analytical tools of cultural evolution theory and provides a classification of cognitive factors involved in consumption choices.

Common Knowledge and Cheap Talk in Democratic Discourse and Law

This commentary illuminates key aspects of Shiffrin’s view by appeal to concrete examples and notions from game theory. It underscores the role of law as a means for the public communication of moral commitments by invoking the idea of common knowledge. Our commitments must be known to be shared, that knowledge itself must be known to be shared, and so on ad infinitum. This offers a perspective on the importance of common law from a democratic framework: common law can be seen as a mechanism for generating common knowledge about disputes and their resolution. The commentary invokes another game-theoretic notion, that of the contrast between cheap talk and costly signaling, to illuminate Shiffrin’s discussion of constitutional balancing. Where the interests of speaker and addressee are not aligned, cheap talk lacks credibility, and this is something to which courts need to be sensitive in balancing state and constitutional interests.

“The Courtroom of World Opinion”: Bringing the International Audience into Nuclear Crises

What role does the international audience play in nuclear crises? Scholars of nuclear crises and deterrence have treated nuclear crises as dyadic interactions between two sides. However, states do not only interact with each other during a nuclear crisis. They also signal to a third actor—the international audience. There are two reasons for this. First, states care about their international social reputation and want to be perceived as responsible and legitimate actors. Second, there are material benefits to states maintaining a good social reputation with the international audience, which possesses the leverage to reward, condemn, and sanction. States thus attempt to leverage this power of the international audience to apply diplomatic pressure on their adversary during nuclear crises. They also engage in costly signaling and strategic restraint to ensure that the international audience considers their actions legitimate during the crisis. I use original qualitative evidence from the Kargil War (1999) between India and Pakistan to demonstrate this dynamic. Incorporating the international audience as a critical third actor during nuclear crises has important academic and policy implications for the study of nuclear crises and their management. ¿Qué función cumple el público internacional en las crisis nucleares? Los estudiosos de la disuasión y las crisis nucleares han tratado dichas crisis como interacciones diádicas entre dos lados. No obstante, los Estados no solo interactúan entre sí durante una crisis nuclear. También hacen señas a un tercer actor: el público internacional. Esto se debe a dos motivos. En primer lugar, los Estados se preocupan por su reputación social internacional y desean que se los perciba como actores responsables y legítimos. En segundo lugar, existen beneficios materiales para los Estados que mantienen una buena reputación social con el público internacional, el cual tiene influencia en la recompensación, la condena y la sanción. Por tanto, los Estados intentan aprovechar este poder del público internacional para aplicar presión diplomática en su adversario durante las crisis nucleares. También emplean un envío de señas costoso y restricciones estratégicas para garantizar que el público internacional considere sus acciones como legítimas durante la crisis. Utilizo pruebas cualitativas originales de la guerra de Kargil (1999) entre India y Pakistán para demostrar esta dinámica. La incorporación del público internacional como un tercer actor fundamental durante las crisis nucleares presenta importantes implicaciones académicas y políticas para el estudio de las crisis nucleares y su manejo. Quel rôle le public international joue-t-il dans les crises nucléaires? Les chercheurs se consacrant à la dissuasion et aux crises nucléaires ont traité les crises nucléaires comme étant des interactions dyadiques entre deux camps. Cependant, les États ne se contentent pas d'interagir l'un avec l'autre lors d'une crise nucléaire. Ils émettent également un signal à l'attention d'un acteur tiers, le public international. Il y a deux raisons à cela. D'une part, les États se soucient de leur réputation sociale internationale et souhaitent être perçus comme des acteurs responsables et légitimes. Et d'autre part, le maintien d'une bonne réputation sociale auprès du public international présente des avantages matériels pour les États puisque ce public dispose de l'influence nécessaire pour récompenser, condamner et sanctionner. Les États tentent donc de tirer parti de ce pouvoir du public international pour exercer une pression diplomatique sur leur adversaire lors de crises nucléaires. Ils s'engagent également dans un signal coûteux et dans une retenue stratégique pour veiller à ce que le public international considère leurs actions comme légitimes durant la crise. Je m'appuie sur des preuves qualitatives originales issues du conflit de Kargil (1999) entre l'Inde et le Pakistan pour démontrer cette dynamique. L'intégration du public international comme troisième acteur essentiel lors de crises nucléaires a d'importantes implications politiques et de recherche pour l’étude des crises nucléaires et de leur gestion.

International Trade, Cooperation, and Conflict: The Role of Institutions and Capabilities

In this paper, we reconcile divergent theories linking trade to conflict—opportunity costs and costly signaling on the one hand versus dependence and coercion on the other hand. We argue that variation in domestic political institutions and state capabilities can condition how international trade affects conflictual or cooperative political relationships. When institutions result in a more nationally representative constituency, trade has a relatively more negative association with conflict, whereas deviation from this institutional arrangement reduces the pacifying impact of trade. The presence of greater military capabilities incentivizes leaders to use trade as a lever to advance other state interests. As such, for more powerful states, trade is associated with relatively more conflict and cooperation. We find support for our expectations in statistical tests spanning 1994–2012.

Looking Like a Million Dollars: Does Attractiveness Priming Increase Altruistic Behavior in Experimental Games?

The emergence of altruistic behavior constitutes one of the most widely studied problems in evolutionary biology and behavioral science. Multiple explanations have been proposed, most importantly including kin selection, reciprocity, and costly signaling in sexual selection. In order to test the latter, this study investigated whether people behave more altruistically when primed by photographs of attractive faces and whether more or less altruistic people differ in the number of sexual and romantic partners. Participants in the general population (N = 158, 84 F, 74 M) first rated the attractiveness of photographs of 20 faces of the opposite (sexually preferred) sex and then played the Dictator and Ultimatum Games (DG and UG). The photograph rating acted as priming; half the participants received photographs of people rated as more attractive than average in an earlier study, and the other half received photographs previously rated as less attractive. The attractiveness-primed participants, especially men, were expected to behave more altruistically—signaling that they are desirable, resource-possessing partners. We also expected altruists to self-report more sexual and romantic partners. The observed difference between altruistic behaviors in the attractiveness- and unattractiveness-primed groups occurred in UG offers, however, in the opposite than expected direction in women. The number of sexual partners was positively correlated to minimum acceptable offers (MAOs) in the UG, in line with expectations based on the theory of costly signaling.

Marital Surname Change and Marital Duration Among Divorcées in a Canadian County

Women’s marital surname change has been discussed as comprising one possible signal of intention to remain married, and may be perceived as such, and valued, by husbands. Here, the practice was investigated as a potential predictor of marital duration among couples who went on to divorce. An archival analysis was based on a search of all available, opposite-sex divorces filed over an 8-month period in a Canadian county. Among couples (n = 107) divorcing, marriages the women in which underwent marital surname change lasted 60% longer, controlling for wife’s age at the time of marriage. When the woman’s marital surname change/retention was used as a regression predictor of number of children of the marriage alongside marriage duration in years, only the latter was predictive. No husband took his wife’s surname. Giving the maternal surname (along with the paternal surname) to children occurred at a negligible frequency. Potential reasons for these findings including costly signaling and, ultimately, paternity uncertainty, as well as possible implications for public policy, are discussed.

Information Validates the Prior: A Theorem on Bayesian Updating and Applications

We develop a result on expected posteriors for Bayesians with heterogenous priors, dubbed information validates the prior (IVP). Under familiar ordering requirements, Anne expects a (Blackwell) more informative experiment to bring Bob’s posterior mean closer to Anne’s prior mean. We apply the result in two contexts of games of asymmetric information: voluntary testing or certification, and costly signaling or falsification. IVP can be used to determine how an agent’s behavior responds to additional exogenous or endogenous information. We discuss economic implications. (JEL C11, D82, D84)

Prosocial Behaviors in Emergencies: Mating Motive Changes Men and Women’s Heroic Helping Tendencies Differently

It has been well documented that men are much more likely to provide heroic assistance in emergencies (Johnson, 1996). However, such heroic rescue disobeys the theory of evolution (Darwin, 1871). Studies investigated charitable donations suggested that public prosocial behaviors might be considered as costly signaling behaviors, serving the function of displaying one’s wealth and generosity, with the ultimate goal of attracting potential mates (Griskevicius et al., 2007). Although heroic rescue meets the four criteria of costly signaling behaviors, there was no direct evidence supporting the notion that heroic rescue, like public charity, also serves the function of attracting potential mates. The present study directly tests this possibility by examining the effect of mating motivation on men and women’s heroic rescue tendencies in emergent situations. The present study used a 2 (gender: male vs. female) × 2 (mating motivation induction vs. control condition) study design, and participants (N = 196, 90 males and 106 females; Mage = 22.36, SD = 2.89) were randomly assigned to the mating condition and control condition. In line with the previous studies (Durante & Li, 2009; Griskevicius et al., 2007; Hill & Durante, 2011; Roney, 2003; Wilson & Daly, 2004), mating motivation was induced by photographs of highly attractive opposite sex. Then, heroic rescue tendencies were measured by the questionnaire of Griskevicius et al. (2007), which consisted of five emergent situations. Participants’ risk-taking tendencies on financial decisions were also measured by a 10-item questionnaire developed by Liu (2010). The total scores of each of these two questionnaires served as the dependent variables. The results of the experiments showed a significant interaction between gender and mating priming on heroic behaviors: after mating motivation induction, male participants showed higher intentions of heroic rescue, whereas female participants showed lower intentions of heroic rescue. The present study also replicated previous findings (McAlvanah, 2009; Li & Zhang, 2010) regarding the effect of mating motivation priming on financial risk taking: mating motivation induction increased risk-taking tendency in financial decisions, males tend to be more risk seeking in making financial decisions, and there was no significant interaction between gender and mating priming on financial risk-taking decisions. Results from the financial decisions further confirmed the representativeness of the sample recruited in the current study and further validated the results on heroic behaviors. Based on the Costly Signaling Theory (Smith & Bird, 2001), these results concurred with the hypotheses that heroic behaviors served the function of displaying men’s advantages, such as vigor and responsibility, to potential mates and winning the intersexual selection (Farthing, 2005; Kelly & Dunbar, 2001). However, for women, the high-risk of heroic behaviors have potential harm to their offspring and are unattractive to men (Taylor et al., 2000). Thus, after eliciting the mating motivation, women would avoid the risk and reduced their intentions to offer heroic rescue in emergencies.