1
00:00:03,608 --> 00:00:06,538
You know that you've made it big
when somebody introduces you

2
00:00:06,538 --> 00:00:07,778
with only one name.

3
00:00:07,811 --> 00:00:09,512
So I'm like Madonna and Cher now.

4
00:00:09,515 --> 00:00:11,475
He doesn't have to mention my last name.

5
00:00:11,475 --> 00:00:14,516
So, thank you all for being here,

6
00:00:14,516 --> 00:00:16,479
and for waiting for the last talk,

7
00:00:16,479 --> 00:00:20,722
I can't promise you that I'll be
as exciting as Nomadic massive,

8
00:00:20,722 --> 00:00:25,602
or as Owen with his mashing up,
but I'll try to keep you entertained.

9
00:00:25,602 --> 00:00:27,672
So basically, in the past 15 years

10
00:00:27,672 --> 00:00:31,641
I've been trying to infuse
evolutionary psychology

11
00:00:31,641 --> 00:00:33,672
into the study of consumption.

12
00:00:34,765 --> 00:00:36,638
The idea being

13
00:00:39,258 --> 00:00:41,482
that if you look at these faces,

14
00:00:41,482 --> 00:00:44,590
of course there are very important
cross-cultural differences,

15
00:00:45,781 --> 00:00:47,969
that define these people

16
00:00:47,969 --> 00:00:50,610
but underneath these differences

17
00:00:50,610 --> 00:00:53,152
there is a bed of human universals

18
00:00:53,157 --> 00:00:57,223
that are very much rooted
in our common shared human nature.

19
00:00:57,223 --> 00:01:01,431
And so, to quote E. O. Wilson,
the famed Harvard evolutionary biologist,

20
00:01:01,431 --> 00:01:03,741
he said that
"the genes hold culture on a leash,"

21
00:01:03,741 --> 00:01:07,510
to which I would simply add, "the genes
hold consumer behavior on a leash".

22
00:01:07,510 --> 00:01:10,700
So, of course culture is malleable,

23
00:01:10,713 --> 00:01:13,333
but it is malleable within
our biological constraints.

24
00:01:14,683 --> 00:01:17,322
So this idea of "Nature vs. Nurture"

25
00:01:17,322 --> 00:01:19,682
is one that has come up
in many different fields,

26
00:01:19,690 --> 00:01:21,155
many different contexts,

27
00:01:21,155 --> 00:01:23,936
are charismatic leaders born
or are they made?

28
00:01:23,936 --> 00:01:25,872
So, in the context of consumer behavior

29
00:01:25,872 --> 00:01:27,373
I'll give you one such example:

30
00:01:27,373 --> 00:01:31,236
toy preferences, is typically the example
that social scientists use

31
00:01:31,236 --> 00:01:33,006
to demonstrate that we are socialized

32
00:01:33,006 --> 00:01:34,145
to be consumers.

33
00:01:34,145 --> 00:01:38,196
So, little Johnny plays
with the blue truck aggressively

34
00:01:38,196 --> 00:01:42,957
while little Linda plays with
the pink doll in a very nurturing way,

35
00:01:42,957 --> 00:01:45,955
and it is this cascade
of gender socialization

36
00:01:45,955 --> 00:01:50,464
that eventually leads us to be
grown up males or females.

37
00:01:50,464 --> 00:01:53,047
It turns out
that that's not quite so accurate.

38
00:01:53,047 --> 00:01:55,581
So let me just very briefly
discuss a few findings

39
00:01:55,581 --> 00:01:57,843
that demonstrate
that some of these preferences

40
00:01:57,850 --> 00:01:59,202
are actually quite innate.

41
00:01:59,202 --> 00:02:01,472
Children who are
in the pre-socialization stage,

42
00:02:01,472 --> 00:02:04,276
meaning that they don't yet have
the cognitive development

43
00:02:04,276 --> 00:02:05,232
to be socialized,

44
00:02:05,232 --> 00:02:08,838
also display this sex-specific
toy preferences.

45
00:02:09,953 --> 00:02:13,488
Little girls who suffer from
congenital adrenal hyperplasia,

46
00:02:13,488 --> 00:02:18,186
which is an endocrinological disorder
that masculinizes little girls,

47
00:02:18,186 --> 00:02:23,372
they tend to then have
toy preferences that are very much like

48
00:02:23,372 --> 00:02:24,522
little boys'.

49
00:02:24,522 --> 00:02:28,674
And then, if you do studies
with some of our primate cousins,

50
00:02:28,676 --> 00:02:30,716
rhesus monkeys and vervet monkeys,

51
00:02:30,725 --> 00:02:34,827
they have very much the same
sex-specific toy preferences.

52
00:02:34,827 --> 00:02:37,884
So that puts a bit of a damper on the idea

53
00:02:37,888 --> 00:02:41,338
that we are just empty minds
who are subsequently sociallized.

54
00:02:41,338 --> 00:02:44,868
And if you are wondering
why the baby is extremely beautiful,

55
00:02:44,868 --> 00:02:47,341
that's because of the beauty of my wife

56
00:02:47,341 --> 00:02:49,104
who is here in the room.

57
00:02:49,104 --> 00:02:53,282
(Applause)

58
00:02:54,262 --> 00:02:56,757
That's a belated Valentine's gift.

59
00:02:56,757 --> 00:02:58,716
(Laughter)

60
00:02:58,716 --> 00:03:02,995
Now I don't have to pay her
any fancy flowers and so on.

61
00:03:02,995 --> 00:03:08,610
To give you a sense of how powerful
evolutionary psychology is

62
00:03:08,610 --> 00:03:12,050
in understanding even daily events,

63
00:03:12,050 --> 00:03:14,568
I'll just share one example
continuing with the story

64
00:03:14,568 --> 00:03:16,635
of my little daughter.

65
00:03:16,635 --> 00:03:19,482
So, when my wife was pregnant
with our daughter Luna,

66
00:03:19,482 --> 00:03:22,712
of course we got the requisite
two-month ultrasound,

67
00:03:22,712 --> 00:03:24,722
we put it up very proudly

68
00:03:24,722 --> 00:03:27,074
on the refrigerator,

69
00:03:27,074 --> 00:03:29,895
mother in-law came over
with my father in-law,

70
00:03:29,895 --> 00:03:31,563
and she looks at these images,

71
00:03:31,563 --> 00:03:33,322
now, these images I should point out,

72
00:03:33,322 --> 00:03:35,143
they could be those of a lizard,

73
00:03:35,143 --> 00:03:37,236
they could be those of an ameoba,

74
00:03:37,236 --> 00:03:38,854
they could be those of an alien,

75
00:03:38,854 --> 00:03:40,634
yet she looks at it

76
00:03:40,634 --> 00:03:41,664
and arrestingly says,

77
00:03:41,664 --> 00:03:45,393
"Oh, my god, Gad,
the baby looks exactly like you."

78
00:03:45,393 --> 00:03:48,352
(Laughter)

79
00:03:48,352 --> 00:03:50,329
"He has your profile, can't you see?"

80
00:03:50,329 --> 00:03:53,348
Now, why would that be related
to evolutionary psychology?

81
00:03:53,348 --> 00:03:56,308
Well, it turns out
that when children are born,

82
00:03:56,309 --> 00:03:57,628
around the world, right?

83
00:03:57,628 --> 00:03:59,687
So this is not specific
to Peruvian culture

84
00:03:59,687 --> 00:04:00,864
or Israeli culture,

85
00:04:00,864 --> 00:04:02,887
it's very much a human universal,

86
00:04:02,887 --> 00:04:04,587
when kids are born,

87
00:04:04,587 --> 00:04:09,908
usually the mother's side of the family
will very very quickly proclaim

88
00:04:09,908 --> 00:04:13,094
that the newborn baby
looks exactly like the father.

89
00:04:13,094 --> 00:04:15,513
The reason for that
is because it's a mechanism,

90
00:04:15,513 --> 00:04:18,355
it's a cultural mechanism
to try to assuage

91
00:04:18,355 --> 00:04:21,146
threats of paternity uncertainty.

92
00:04:22,224 --> 00:04:25,252
But in this case,
this is the first scientific case

93
00:04:25,252 --> 00:04:28,116
where this mechanism happened in utero.

94
00:04:28,116 --> 00:04:31,584
So I've already made my daughter famous

95
00:04:31,584 --> 00:04:34,915
even before she could speak or think.

96
00:04:35,783 --> 00:04:39,427
So, for the rest of the talk today
I'll talk about some of the research

97
00:04:39,427 --> 00:04:43,396
that I've been doing,
linking how our survival instinct

98
00:04:43,396 --> 00:04:47,247
manifests itself in consumer behavior,
and then also our reproductive instinct.

99
00:04:47,247 --> 00:04:51,897
So, food, of course, is probably
the consumption act

100
00:04:51,897 --> 00:04:55,164
that is most closely linked
to our survival.

101
00:04:55,164 --> 00:04:59,603
So if you look at the hummingbird,
he has to eat roughly 1.5 - 3 times

102
00:04:59,603 --> 00:05:03,456
its body weight per day,
because of its high metabolism,

103
00:05:03,456 --> 00:05:05,185
in order to be able to survive.

104
00:05:05,185 --> 00:05:07,808
So, he's got a good reason
why he has to eat so much.

105
00:05:07,808 --> 00:05:10,612
On the other hand,
'All you can eat' buffets,

106
00:05:10,612 --> 00:05:14,829
'All you can have' vacation packages,
'supersize me's,

107
00:05:14,829 --> 00:05:18,125
cater to the same instinct
of hoarding and gorging.

108
00:05:18,125 --> 00:05:20,987
Unfortunately, we don't have
his metabolic rate, so we end up

109
00:05:20,987 --> 00:05:23,337
with these dreadful diseases.

110
00:05:23,337 --> 00:05:26,035
Continuing with the same line of thinking,

111
00:05:26,035 --> 00:05:30,130
we have this incredible
innate preference for fatty foods,

112
00:05:30,130 --> 00:05:33,493
few of us prefer raw broccoli
to chocolate mousse,

113
00:05:33,493 --> 00:05:35,692
or to a juicy steak.

114
00:05:35,692 --> 00:05:37,758
So, if you look here at the grizzly bears,

115
00:05:37,758 --> 00:05:40,192
they're eating fatty salmon,

116
00:05:40,192 --> 00:05:42,447
you know, prior to going into
semi hibernation.

117
00:05:42,447 --> 00:05:45,092
If you look at the top ten restaurants
around the world,

118
00:05:45,092 --> 00:05:46,614
they have one thing in common,

119
00:05:46,614 --> 00:05:50,019
they deliver fatty foods to us,
that is tasty.

120
00:05:50,019 --> 00:05:52,135
It's not that they have
good advertisements,

121
00:05:52,135 --> 00:05:53,949
it's not that they have nice jingles.

122
00:05:53,949 --> 00:05:56,803
It's that they deliver a product
that is perfectly congruent

123
00:05:56,803 --> 00:05:58,677
with our evolved taste buds.

124
00:05:58,677 --> 00:06:01,108
and this is exactly what
the Atkins diet did, right?

125
00:06:01,108 --> 00:06:04,013
The Atkins diet said,
"Hey, you could eat as much as you want

126
00:06:04,013 --> 00:06:07,989
fatty steak, eggs, you could eat bacon,
and you're going to lose weight."

127
00:06:07,989 --> 00:06:10,359
Great, sign me up, right?

128
00:06:12,217 --> 00:06:15,312
Interestingly, though,
cross-cultural differences

129
00:06:15,312 --> 00:06:19,269
in cullinary traditions,
are also, themselves, due to biology.

130
00:06:19,269 --> 00:06:22,818
So if you look at cultures
that are predominantly meat-based,

131
00:06:22,818 --> 00:06:24,832
so look at the top smoked meat sandwich,

132
00:06:24,832 --> 00:06:27,072
or predominantly vegetable-based,

133
00:06:27,072 --> 00:06:30,092
or how much spices are used
in a culinary tradition,

134
00:06:30,092 --> 00:06:32,685
how much salt consumption is used,

135
00:06:32,685 --> 00:06:35,006
how much pickling happens in a culture,

136
00:06:35,006 --> 00:06:38,069
each of these culinary traditions
turn out to be adaptations

137
00:06:38,069 --> 00:06:40,133
to the local environment.

138
00:06:40,133 --> 00:06:41,586
And what's specifically,

139
00:06:41,586 --> 00:06:43,894
it's correlated to the latitude
of the country,

140
00:06:43,894 --> 00:06:46,864
which is of course correlated
to the ambient temperature,

141
00:06:46,864 --> 00:06:50,328
which is correlated to the density
of the food pathogens in that culture.

142
00:06:50,328 --> 00:06:53,407
So rather than simply saying
that here we have an example

143
00:06:53,407 --> 00:06:55,556
of oh, it's due to culture,

144
00:06:55,556 --> 00:06:58,088
an evolutionary approach
allows you to understand

145
00:06:58,088 --> 00:07:01,787
what is the ultimate explanation
for that cultural difference.

146
00:07:04,285 --> 00:07:07,848
Moving on to mating,
something that I think everybody here

147
00:07:07,848 --> 00:07:09,407
would be interested in.

148
00:07:09,407 --> 00:07:12,273
If you look at the cardinal,
he's engaging in what's called:

149
00:07:12,273 --> 00:07:13,772
nuptial gift-giving.

150
00:07:13,772 --> 00:07:17,034
In many species you offer a gift,
the male cardinal, you could see,

151
00:07:17,034 --> 00:07:19,189
has a food morsel in his mouth,

152
00:07:19,189 --> 00:07:21,459
he's saying, "Hey, look,
I can provide for you,

153
00:07:21,459 --> 00:07:23,897
and as a measure
of how well I can provide for you,

154
00:07:23,897 --> 00:07:27,647
how about you grant me
sexual access to you?"

155
00:07:27,647 --> 00:07:30,709
And, of course, we engage
in endless forms,


156
00:07:30,709 --> 00:07:33,876
as consumers, in exactly this behavior.

157
00:07:34,679 --> 00:07:38,208
The diamond rings that we have to offer
have to be a costly signal,

158
00:07:38,208 --> 00:07:43,615
otherwise, the ladies wouldn't be able
to assort the difference between the faker

159
00:07:44,032 --> 00:07:45,365
and the true suitor.

160
00:07:45,365 --> 00:07:46,938
Therefore, I have to pay 25%

161
00:07:46,938 --> 00:07:50,337
of my yearly income
to show you that I am truthful.

162
00:07:50,337 --> 00:07:52,395
And hopefully then, you will give it up,

163
00:07:52,395 --> 00:07:54,443
just like the female cardinal.

164
00:07:54,443 --> 00:07:58,636
(Laughter)

165
00:07:58,636 --> 00:08:01,206
We use products as sexual signals, right?

166
00:08:01,206 --> 00:08:03,283
So if you look at the peacock over here,

167
00:08:03,283 --> 00:08:08,186
the hen seems to be rather uninterested,
and he's saying, "Look at my tail.

168
00:08:08,186 --> 00:08:11,248
Look how big it is.
Look how symmetric it is.

169
00:08:11,248 --> 00:08:14,749
Look how iridescent the colors are.
This is why you have to choose me.

170
00:08:14,749 --> 00:08:17,269
Because my phenotypic quality
is so great."

171
00:08:17,269 --> 00:08:20,530
Well, I've argued in several of my books

172
00:08:20,530 --> 00:08:23,440
that consumers do exactly that.

173
00:08:24,695 --> 00:08:27,966
Many times, we use products
either men or women,

174
00:08:27,966 --> 00:08:31,394
to improve our position
in the mating market.

175
00:08:31,394 --> 00:08:34,363
So a few years ago,
with one of my former graduate students,

176
00:08:34,363 --> 00:08:36,633
John Vongas,
we decided to test this idea.

177
00:08:36,633 --> 00:08:41,592
We brought in people - not people,
we brought in males into the lab,

178
00:08:41,592 --> 00:08:45,363
and we had them drive either a fancy,
it's not imagine driving a Porsche,

179
00:08:45,363 --> 00:08:47,331
they actually drove a Porsche.

180
00:08:47,331 --> 00:08:50,123
Or they drove a beaten up,
rusted, old sedan,

181
00:08:50,123 --> 00:08:53,122
in one of two environments,
either in downtown Montreal,

182
00:08:53,122 --> 00:08:54,894
where everybody could see you,

183
00:08:54,894 --> 00:08:57,153
or in a semi-deserted highway.

184
00:08:57,153 --> 00:09:00,767
By the way, try to get a granting agency
to release money,

185
00:09:00,767 --> 00:09:03,563
and convince them
that you're not going to use the Porsche

186
00:09:03,563 --> 00:09:05,813
for your own personal sinister pursuits.

187
00:09:05,813 --> 00:09:07,883
(Laughter)

188
00:09:07,883 --> 00:09:10,654
Now, what were some
of the dependent measures?

189
00:09:10,654 --> 00:09:14,005
At the end of each of these conditions,
these driving conditions,

190
00:09:14,005 --> 00:09:17,830
we collected salivary assays,
which then help us measure

191
00:09:17,830 --> 00:09:21,217
their fluctuations
in their testosterone levels.

192
00:09:21,217 --> 00:09:22,891
And what do you think happened?

193
00:09:22,891 --> 00:09:25,369
When you put young males in the Porsche

194
00:09:25,369 --> 00:09:28,714
the endocrinology response is outlandish!

195
00:09:28,714 --> 00:09:31,245
(Laughter)

196
00:09:31,245 --> 00:09:34,783
Now, we had thought
that, yes, testosterone would go up

197
00:09:34,783 --> 00:09:37,787
in both environments,
but it would go up a lot more

198
00:09:37,787 --> 00:09:39,703
when everybody could see you.

199
00:09:39,703 --> 00:09:42,304
So in downtown Montreal
it would go up a lot more

200
00:09:42,304 --> 00:09:44,004
than on a semi-deserted highway.

201
00:09:44,004 --> 00:09:45,473
The guys couldn't give a damn.

202
00:09:45,473 --> 00:09:49,531
Put me in a Porsche,
the testosterone shot through the roof.

203
00:09:51,629 --> 00:09:53,826
Just to continue with this point,

204
00:09:53,826 --> 00:09:55,893
cars are sexual signals,

205
00:09:57,353 --> 00:09:59,379
this is a study that was done
two years ago

206
00:09:59,379 --> 00:10:01,013
by some British psychologists.

207
00:10:01,013 --> 00:10:03,084
These are the actual stimuli
that they used.

208
00:10:03,084 --> 00:10:05,723
You take the same guy,
you put him in a Ford Fiesta,

209
00:10:05,723 --> 00:10:07,885
beaten up old car, or in a Bentley,

210
00:10:07,885 --> 00:10:10,325
and you ask women to rate
this guy in terms

211
00:10:10,325 --> 00:10:12,025
of how physically attractive he is.

212
00:10:12,025 --> 00:10:14,554
You're not talking about his status,
just physically,

213
00:10:14,554 --> 00:10:15,951
how beautiful is this man?

214
00:10:15,951 --> 00:10:19,166
And you do the same thing with the woman,
and men have to judge it.

215
00:10:19,166 --> 00:10:22,585
Men couldn't give a damn
the car that the lady was driving.

216
00:10:22,585 --> 00:10:25,792
On the other hand, the women
when the guy is in the Bentley,

217
00:10:25,792 --> 00:10:28,621
"Oh my god, he's Brad Pitt."

218
00:10:28,621 --> 00:10:32,294
When he's driving the other car,
"Oh no, I don't like losers like this."

219
00:10:32,294 --> 00:10:33,491
OK?

220
00:10:33,491 --> 00:10:36,231
So again, it shows you how these products

221
00:10:36,231 --> 00:10:37,733
are quite intoxicating,

222
00:10:37,733 --> 00:10:40,325
in terms of how it helps us
position ourselves

223
00:10:40,325 --> 00:10:42,028
in the mating market.

224
00:10:42,677 --> 00:10:46,196
Of course, not only men
engage in sexual signaling.

225
00:10:46,196 --> 00:10:49,512
The ladies are also guilty
of such pursuits.

226
00:10:49,512 --> 00:10:53,314
On the left hand side we've got
a female baboon who is in estrus,

227
00:10:53,314 --> 00:10:58,252
and she's in estrus, engaging in
conspicuous advertising of her genitalia.

228
00:10:58,252 --> 00:11:00,814
I think I could speak safely
for all men here,

229
00:11:00,814 --> 00:11:03,697
that we would not want our human females

230
00:11:03,697 --> 00:11:06,698
to be conspicuously displaying
their genitalia in this way.

231
00:11:06,698 --> 00:11:10,902
But, sticking true to the pink theme -
what they certainly do do -

232
00:11:10,902 --> 00:11:13,456
is that they would dress
much more provocatively

233
00:11:13,456 --> 00:11:15,112
when they are maximally fertile

234
00:11:15,112 --> 00:11:16,449
in their menstrual cycle.

235
00:11:16,449 --> 00:11:19,426
So with one of my doctorate students,
who's here in the room -

236
00:11:19,426 --> 00:11:21,869
I can't see him
because I am blinded by the light -

237
00:11:21,869 --> 00:11:25,343
Eric Stenstrom, we've done
a very very thorough study

238
00:11:25,343 --> 00:11:27,639
where we've looked
at how the menstrual cycle

239
00:11:27,639 --> 00:11:30,034
affects women's behaviors as consumers.

240
00:11:30,034 --> 00:11:31,924
One of which is how much do they engage

241
00:11:31,924 --> 00:11:33,258
in beautification

242
00:11:33,258 --> 00:11:35,204
as a function of whether they are

243
00:11:35,204 --> 00:11:37,381
in the luteal phase
or in the fertile phase

244
00:11:37,381 --> 00:11:39,237
of their menstrual cycle.

245
00:11:39,237 --> 00:11:43,706
Continuing on
with this idea of sexual signaling.

246
00:11:43,706 --> 00:11:47,058
A few years ago
I had an undergraduate student

247
00:11:47,058 --> 00:11:49,723
who at the end of the course
came to me and said,

248
00:11:49,723 --> 00:11:53,613
"Professor Saad, I have to work with you,
could you hook me up with some project?

249
00:11:53,613 --> 00:11:54,976
I want to do anything!"

250
00:11:54,976 --> 00:11:57,162
So I thought about it for a while,
and I said -

251
00:11:57,162 --> 00:11:59,152
this is a male student -

252
00:11:59,152 --> 00:12:03,392
I said, "OK, how about if I were
to give you the following project,

253
00:12:03,392 --> 00:12:05,392
you're going to surf porn sites

254
00:12:05,392 --> 00:12:06,985
for the next one month."

255
00:12:06,985 --> 00:12:08,912
(Laughter)

256
00:12:08,912 --> 00:12:11,839
To which he looked at me
and his eyes told me,

257
00:12:11,839 --> 00:12:13,993
"Prof. Saad, I love you!"

258
00:12:13,993 --> 00:12:16,508
(Laughter)

259
00:12:18,846 --> 00:12:21,930
So, what was the point
of the project, basically?

260
00:12:21,930 --> 00:12:23,379
I wanted to test

261
00:12:23,379 --> 00:12:25,829
what evolutionary psychologists
have talked about,

262
00:12:25,829 --> 00:12:29,002
this idea of a preference
for the hourglass figure,

263
00:12:29,002 --> 00:12:32,491
which is a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7,

264
00:12:32,491 --> 00:12:34,825
whether I could actually pick it out

265
00:12:34,825 --> 00:12:38,522
by doing a content analysis
of how female escorts

266
00:12:38,522 --> 00:12:40,555
advertise themselves on the Internet.

267
00:12:40,555 --> 00:12:43,083
So, typically,
you know, my height is 5'3'',

268
00:12:43,083 --> 00:12:45,146
here are my measurements,
here is my weight,

269
00:12:45,146 --> 00:12:46,179
here is my fee.

270
00:12:46,179 --> 00:12:50,813
So, what I had this
very lucky male undergraduate student do

271
00:12:50,813 --> 00:12:53,519
is just surf different sites,

272
00:12:53,519 --> 00:12:57,727
he ended up gathering data
of more than 1,000 female escorts.

273
00:12:57,727 --> 00:12:59,124
(Laughter)

274
00:12:59,124 --> 00:13:04,542
Right, he was really assiduous
in his pursuit of science,

275
00:13:04,542 --> 00:13:07,043
and it covered 48 different countries,

276
00:13:07,043 --> 00:13:08,043
so nobody could say,

277
00:13:08,043 --> 00:13:09,863
'Oh, but this a Western standard.'

278
00:13:09,863 --> 00:13:11,563
'Oh, it's due to the Oprah effect.'

279
00:13:11,563 --> 00:13:14,124
'It's due to Cosmopolitan magazine.'

280
00:13:14,124 --> 00:13:16,532
We specifically chose cultures

281
00:13:16,532 --> 00:13:21,185
that were extraordinarily disparate
in terms of the different metrics

282
00:13:21,185 --> 00:13:23,155
that a culture might be defined on,

283
00:13:23,155 --> 00:13:24,885
and it turns out that the average

284
00:13:24,885 --> 00:13:26,917
waist-to-hip ratio is exactly in line

285
00:13:26,917 --> 00:13:29,615
with what is expected
from an evolutionary perspective.

286
00:13:29,615 --> 00:13:35,007
Men like a waist-to-hip ratio
that signals nubility and fertility.

287
00:13:36,571 --> 00:13:40,647
So, continuing very briefly,
how do some of these sex differences

288
00:13:40,647 --> 00:13:42,164
that I've been talking about

289
00:13:42,164 --> 00:13:44,551
manifest themselves in other settings?

290
00:13:44,551 --> 00:13:46,278
Well, if you were a paleontologist,

291
00:13:46,278 --> 00:13:48,714
and you want to study
the evolution of a species,

292
00:13:48,714 --> 00:13:51,914
you typically would have gone
through skeletal remains,

293
00:13:51,914 --> 00:13:54,174
you might go through the fossil records,

294
00:13:54,174 --> 00:13:57,359
and that would allow you
to reconstruct the phylogenetic

295
00:13:57,359 --> 00:13:59,007
history of a species.

296
00:13:59,007 --> 00:14:01,642
Well, of course, our minds
don't fossilize,

297
00:14:01,642 --> 00:14:05,015
and so we have to find
some alternate fossil record.

298
00:14:05,015 --> 00:14:08,198
And so, what I have argued
is that we can turn to cultural products

299
00:14:08,198 --> 00:14:09,775
as our fossil records.

300
00:14:09,775 --> 00:14:11,152
Because cultural products

301
00:14:11,152 --> 00:14:13,864
are ultimately created by human minds.

302
00:14:13,864 --> 00:14:15,806
And so we could do a content analysis

303
00:14:15,806 --> 00:14:17,402
on these cultural products

304
00:14:17,402 --> 00:14:20,306
to help us identify
some of the evolutionary forces

305
00:14:20,306 --> 00:14:23,442
that would have led
to the evolution of the human mind.

306
00:14:23,442 --> 00:14:26,092
So, romance novels
are almost exclusively read by women,

307
00:14:26,092 --> 00:14:28,167
around the world,
whether you are from Peru,

308
00:14:28,167 --> 00:14:29,170
or Egypt or Montreal,

309
00:14:29,170 --> 00:14:30,743
it's read by women.

310
00:14:30,743 --> 00:14:33,626
If you, for example,
look at the male archetype,

311
00:14:33,626 --> 00:14:35,274
the male hero,

312
00:14:35,274 --> 00:14:38,837
it's almost identical
across all romance novels.

313
00:14:38,837 --> 00:14:42,656
He's never a short, hourglassed,
beta male who is afraid of his shadow.

314
00:14:44,002 --> 00:14:46,002
He's larger than life, he's tall,

315
00:14:46,002 --> 00:14:48,585
he's muscular, he's a neurosurgeon,

316
00:14:48,585 --> 00:14:50,178
or a king or a prince.

317
00:14:50,178 --> 00:14:54,845
That's because that particular product
caters to women's evolved fantasies.

318
00:14:54,845 --> 00:14:57,074
On the other hand, hardcore pornography

319
00:14:57,074 --> 00:14:59,875
doesn't exist because
there is a patriarchal conspiracy

320
00:14:59,875 --> 00:15:02,166
to demean women, it exists because

321
00:15:02,166 --> 00:15:05,722
it caters to a particular penchant in men.

322
00:15:05,722 --> 00:15:08,803
And so, if you want to understand
some of these sex differences,

323
00:15:08,803 --> 00:15:11,482
look at these cultural products
that are very successful,

324
00:15:11,482 --> 00:15:14,022
and you will really understand
quite a bit, not only

325
00:15:14,022 --> 00:15:16,895
about our commonalities
but also about our differences.

326
00:15:16,895 --> 00:15:21,219
Next, since we've had
Nomadic Massive and Owen

327
00:15:21,219 --> 00:15:24,312
talking about music,
this is particularly apropos,

328
00:15:24,312 --> 00:15:26,343
If you look at songs,

329
00:15:26,343 --> 00:15:30,342
they're a fantastic stimulus
for looking at some

330
00:15:30,342 --> 00:15:31,582
of these sex differences.

331
00:15:31,582 --> 00:15:33,886
So, the things that men and women
sing about,

332
00:15:33,886 --> 00:15:35,648
are perfectly congruent

333
00:15:35,648 --> 00:15:37,684
with universal mating preferences.

334
00:15:37,684 --> 00:15:39,996
So, around the world
men tend to place a lot more

335
00:15:39,996 --> 00:15:42,623
value on youth and physical beauty

336
00:15:42,623 --> 00:15:44,006
in prospective mates,

337
00:15:44,006 --> 00:15:46,475
and around the world
women place a lot more value

338
00:15:46,475 --> 00:15:48,851
on social status of men.

339
00:15:48,851 --> 00:15:52,883
Therefore, if you look
at the left-hand examples

340
00:15:52,883 --> 00:15:56,403
all of these top songs:
Gwen Guthrie, Destiny's Child,

341
00:15:56,403 --> 00:15:58,494
TLC and Marlena Shaw,

342
00:15:58,494 --> 00:16:01,076
they're denigrating men
for having low social status.

343
00:16:01,076 --> 00:16:03,060
'If you think you're going to get with me

344
00:16:03,060 --> 00:16:04,535
and you don't have any money,

345
00:16:04,535 --> 00:16:07,704
walk away, idiot,
i'm not interested in you.'

346
00:16:07,704 --> 00:16:08,768
(Laughter)

347
00:16:08,768 --> 00:16:11,714
There are no songs that say,
'Hey, Linda, you're not working

348
00:16:11,714 --> 00:16:14,057
hard at school,
I won't have sex with you.'

349
00:16:14,057 --> 00:16:15,492
(Laughter)

350
00:16:15,492 --> 00:16:16,676
Right?

351
00:16:18,692 --> 00:16:19,722
(Applause)

352
00:16:19,722 --> 00:16:20,989
Thank you.

353
00:16:23,953 --> 00:16:27,253
Thank you,
I feel like I'm a comic up here.

354
00:16:27,253 --> 00:16:28,451
(Laughter)

355
00:16:28,451 --> 00:16:31,253
And, of course, when men sing
about social status

356
00:16:31,253 --> 00:16:32,482
they then show off.

357
00:16:32,482 --> 00:16:33,722
'I've got the goods,

358
00:16:33,722 --> 00:16:35,223
I've got the Aston Martin.'

359
00:16:35,223 --> 00:16:37,304
There's a million
songs 'money in the bank',

360
00:16:37,304 --> 00:16:39,858
I mean, literally,
there is at least ten different

361
00:16:39,858 --> 00:16:42,426
Hip-Hop artists
that have the exact same title

362
00:16:42,426 --> 00:16:43,866
'I've got money in the bank,

363
00:16:43,866 --> 00:16:45,626
you want to get with me.'

364
00:16:45,626 --> 00:16:48,473
Look at the right-hand corner,
the way that men and women

365
00:16:48,473 --> 00:16:52,146
navigate in terms of their sexuality
in their song lyrics,

366
00:16:52,146 --> 00:16:54,326
is drastically different.

367
00:16:54,326 --> 00:16:55,823
So, Mickey Gilley,

368
00:16:55,823 --> 00:16:58,783
who is a country music star 
from the mid seventies,

369
00:16:58,783 --> 00:17:01,814
had a song called:
'Don't the girls all get prettier

370
00:17:01,814 --> 00:17:03,331
at closing time?'

371
00:17:03,331 --> 00:17:06,274
In other words, the girl
that men are willing to sleep with

372
00:17:06,274 --> 00:17:09,064
at eleven o'clock is very different
from the creature

373
00:17:09,064 --> 00:17:12,738
that they are willing to satisfice with
at three in the morning.

374
00:17:12,932 --> 00:17:15,636
You don't have too many songs
that say, 'Don't the guys

375
00:17:15,636 --> 00:17:18,073
get more handsome at closing time?'

376
00:17:18,073 --> 00:17:21,925
Precisely because the cost
of making a sub-optimal mating choice

377
00:17:21,925 --> 00:17:23,848
looms much larger for women.

378
00:17:23,848 --> 00:17:25,554
That's not due to socialization,

379
00:17:25,554 --> 00:17:29,817
that's due to a basic biological reality
called Parental Investment Theory.

380
00:17:29,817 --> 00:17:31,730
Same thing for physical attractiveness.

381
00:17:31,730 --> 00:17:33,791
It's almost always the case,
and by the way,

382
00:17:33,791 --> 00:17:35,644
it's not only true in English songs,

383
00:17:35,644 --> 00:17:38,957
it's not Hip-Hop or English,
or soul songs, you could do Hindi songs

384
00:17:38,957 --> 00:17:43,664
and Arabic songs, and you will find
the exact same phenomena.

385
00:17:43,664 --> 00:17:46,393
So, in conclusion, exactly on time,

386
00:17:46,393 --> 00:17:50,592
T. Dobzhansky was a famous evolutionary
geneticist who said that,

387
00:17:50,592 --> 00:17:54,594
"Nothing in biology makes sense
except in the light of evolution."

388
00:17:54,594 --> 00:17:56,621
Well, I would slightly tweak that,
and say,

389
00:17:56,621 --> 00:18:00,331
Nothing in consumer behavior could ever
make sense without an understanding

390
00:18:00,331 --> 00:18:02,684
of our evolutionary heritage.

391
00:18:02,684 --> 00:18:03,716
Thank you very much.

392
00:18:03,716 --> 00:18:06,414
(Applause)