The third component of the social
dimension form the 4D Model of Behavior is social
competition. As stated in earlier posts human social relationships are on
both dimensions (horizontal and vertical) of social hierarchy. We are
influenced by the behavior (or mere presence) of people just like us (peers) and we are influenced by authority.
Both peer and authority
influences have evolutionary roots. The main idea is that as products of
evolution, human have to achieve two evolutionary macro-goals: (1) Survival and
(2) Successful reproduction. For more on this please read For What Are WeDesigned by Evolution to Be Good At …
At the same time, evolution is not a “nice and fluffy”
egalitarian process. Evolution, by its very nature, implies selection. In
turn this implies that not all individuals get to send their genes into the
next generation – successful reproduction. Some die before having offspring,
others can’t find a mate with whom to have children with, others find a mate,
but of low quality and subsequently their offspring are of low quality too and
in a couple of generations their offspring will not have children and so on.
The main social consequence of selectivity in evolution is that people
(as well as other species) compete with
each-other. The area of competition
is apparently broad, but in fact it can be reduced to a few dimensions.
First, we compete for attracting mates. Finding the best possible
mate with whom to procreate is, from an evolutionary perspective, one of the
top 3 most important goals in life. In order to ensure the perpetuation of your
genes in the next generation, you need to find the best possible partner to
have children with. Moreover, since humans need a lot of time and investment
before becoming independent the partner should be good at parenting and be able
to invest effort and resources in bringing up a child.
Second, we compete in order to defer same sex rivals. It is not
enough to “impress” a potential mate, rather apart from impressing the
potential mate we have to make sure that no other same sex individual impresses
our potential mate.
The popular belief about
competing for mates is that only males do it. This is true for species that
have choosy females and males who would mate (including having offspring) with
any female. Also these species are characterized by uneven parental investment.
In other words the entire effort of raising the offspring is done by the
female.
When it comes to humans, however,
things are a bit different. In the case of humans the parental effort is divided
(roughly equally) between the two parents. This implies that men are also
choosy and would not have children with any human female. As a consequence,
women compete also for attracting potential mates and defer same sex rivals.
Third, we compete for parental investment. Even as children we have
to compete for the limited resources of the parents. These include material
resources (including food), attention, time and so on. In today’s world it is
not uncommon for families to have only one child, thus leading to a lack of
need for competition. In the past, however, having only one child was extremely
rare. Moreover, considering the infant and adult mortality rates it would also
be unwise, from an evolutionary perspective, to not have more children.
We like to think that as parents
we give equal attention and resources to our children, but the reality is
slightly different. Even the smallest difference in parental investment given
to children can make a huge difference in their later life. I don’t want to
develop this argument further since it is not the topic of the post, but the
key idea is that sibling competition exists.
Everybody who has children or had
seen families with children has witnessed a rather disturbing situation in
which a child does something dangerous (and somehow stupid) saying “Look at me
what I can do…” This is an example of children competing for parental
investment. By doing something dangerous the child communicates that he or she
has good physical abilities and thus deserves parental resources.
Fourth, we compete for friends and allies. As a social species we
have friends and allies; we also have enemies. From an evolutionary perspective
having more and better friends and allies constitutes a very high benefit. Having
more and better friends leads to the possibility of acquiring more resources.
Think for example of collective hunting. At the same time it offers better protection
against threats such as predators and natural disasters.
Examples such as collective
hunting and protection against predators are highly relevant for our distant
ancestors’ lives and a lot less meaningful for modern life. At the same time,
the main principles are more or less the same even in the XXI century. Having
more and higher (social) quality friends can help you get a good job (please
read access to resources). Similarly in case of a “bar fight” it is better to
have more and stronger friends willing to help you.
The competition in social
relationships comes from an inherent trait of humans, namely that we can have a
limited number of meaningful social relationships. To make a long story short,
a human can have meaningful relationships with at most 150 people.
Apart from the limited number of relationships
that we can have, there is the issue of “is it worth being friends with you”. I
don’t mean by this that friendships are based only on self-interest, but simply
that having a social relationship with someone should be pleasant.
All these competitive relationships that humans have can be summed up
into competition for one thing only, namely (social) STATUS.
Competition for status is deeply
rooted into human nature. As you most likely have noticed, competition for
status can have both positive and negative outcomes. For example athletic
competition has overall a positive outcome, whereas escalated consumerism has
negative outcomes. This, however, is a more philosophical discussion.
Let’s see how competition for status works. First, we should understand what “status”
is. By its very nature status
implies that others appreciate you for something. Who “others” are is not necessarily
clear, in the sense that for sure “Others” is not the entire human species.
Neither is it the entire society in which you live. For most people “others” represents their social group or a
part of it. This includes friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues,
potential mates etc.
Having broadly defined the “others”
or in other words the audience, let’s take a look at what “something” is, namely for what is an individual appreciated by other
individuals.
There are many things for what a
person can be appreciated for. At the same time this broad array can be reduced
to a few traits that have evolutionary
meaning.
Let me explain a bit more on this
evolutionary perspective. Taking the evolutionary perspective (which I believe
is the best to explain most aspects of human nature), things must make sense for accomplishing the two main evolutionary
macro-goals: survival and successful reproduction. In other words, if in the
XXI century we appreciate someone for something, that something should be
meaningful for our very distant ancestors too.
For example, people appreciate
other people for being funny. From an evolutionary perspective, however, being
friends or having children with someone that is funny has no benefit in order
to survive or have high quality offspring. If, however, being funny is
correlated with something more meaningful such as intelligence, then it makes
sense to be friends or have children with someone funny. This is not because “funniness”
gives an evolutionary benefit, but because more intelligent people are better
at surviving (and protecting others) and intelligence is hereditary, thus your
children will be more intelligent too.
Similarly, in the XXI century
people appreciate athletes for their performances. At the same time being able
to swim very fast or score many goals is not in itself meaningful from an
evolutionary perspective. The underlying traits that allow athletes to be very
good at sports, however, are evolutionary meaningful. Athletic performance can’t
exist in the absence of physical fitness, good physical and mental health (lack
of severe mental problems). All these traits are valuable when it comes to
being friends and or having children with someone.
To conclude on what “something”
is, what we appreciate is not necessarily
relevant from an evolutionary perspective, but what we appreciate (the “something”)
has to signal a trait relevant from an evolutionary perspective.
Evolutionary psychologist
Geoffrey Miller suggests that what we are appreciated for (and subsequently
gain status) are six personality traits
which include Intelligence and the Big Five Personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism). To this I would add physical fitness (physical health and
quality).
The main argument that Geoffrey
Miller gives for this proposition is that these
traits are relatively stable throughout life (though Conscientiousness
increases with age) and are to a large
degree hereditary. If you would like to learn more about Miller’s approach
I strongly recommend reading his book Spent (later editions have the title “Must
have”).
As a note, I will present each
personality trait in future posts.
Having established who “Others” are and what “something” is,
it is time to focus on the “how” of social competition. In other words, the
next question that needs to be answered is “how
do people (socially) compete?”
In order to answer this question,
I suggest going a bit into the animal kingdom and taking a look at how animals
compete for attracting mates, deferring same sex rivals, parental investment
and in some cases for friends and allies. The competition for friends and
allies is less pronounced in most non-primate species especially because many
species are non-social.
Many animals have traits that offer no functional advantage and might
be detrimental to survival, such as brightly collared feathers which can attract
predators, or large tails that may impede an escape from a predator. The most
common example is the peacock’s tail.
It is large and brightly colored, but gives no real functional advantage. In
order to grow and maintain such an ornament and for it to be beautiful, a
peacock has to acquire a large quantity of metabolic resources (food) and to be
healthy (not suffer from diseases or be infested with parasites). Moreover, in
an environment where there are predators, a brightly collared and large tail is
not exactly the best thing to have. The bright colors can attract the attention
of predators, while the large size makes it difficult to flee from them.
If evolution would rely only on “survival
of the fittest”, then such useless and even detrimental to survival features would
have been “lost on the way”. Since they exist, however, they must have some
beneficial role. Charles Darwin’s explanation was that these traits must have
been kept throughout evolution because
they were attractive to the opposite sex.
In other words, these useless and even detrimental features communicate
something about the individual who possesses them that is liked by the opposite
sex. Just like in the example of the athlete (footballer) who scores many
goals, it is not the feature itself that is important, but rather the trait
that it communicates. In the case of the peacock, the big, bright colorful tale
says that this individual is highly physically fit (good genes) since it can
gather all the food needed and can escape predators even with this huge handicap;
in addition it has a good immune system since parasites didn’t damage the tail.
If you would be a peahen hardwired by evolution to find the best possible mate
to have offspring with, then a big, bright colorful tail is all you need to
asses in order to say “yes” or “no” to mating with this peacock.
In scientific terms these useless and even detrimental features that
are appreciated (liked) by others are called “costly signals”. A costly signal
has four characteristics: (1) They have no apparent usefulness (or very low
utilitarian value) or may even pose a threat to the owner; (2) Are costly in
terms of resources needed to have such features; (3) Are visible or even
conspicuous; (4) Are desirable themselves or signal a trait that is desirable
by the opposite sex.
In the case of humans, there are two major particularities
regarding costly signaling. First, the parental investment required to have and
raise a human offspring that gets to have children of his / her own is very
large (much larger than for most animals) and it is distributed between the two
sexes. This implies that both males and
females get to choose their mating partner and subsequently use costly signals
in order to attract mates. This does not mean that men and women exhibit the
same costly signaling behaviors, but rather that each sex tries to attract a
suitable mate.
Second, human bodies do not have conspicuous features similar to the ones found
in animals (e.g. large colored feathers etc.). This implies that most costly signals used by humans to
attract mates, defer same sex rivals, compete for parental investment and
attract friends and allies are
behavioral and not anatomical. The two particularities described above lead
to the conclusion that both sexes exhibit conspicuous behavior related to
signaling their mating value.
When saying behavioral features, I
include possessing things such as
jewelry, expensive electronics, fashion products etc.
Overall, (most of) the human
social competition is done through behaviors and possessions. Consciously or not we exhibit behaviors and
buy stuff with the aim of communicating to others that we possess some desirable
traits.
We communicate our traits through
other means than the costly and useless (from an utilitarian perspective)
behaviors and possessions. In other words, communicating
one’s social / mating value is done through behaviors and possessions that are
not necessarily costly and useless. For example, being a hard worker is
(usually) not useless and it signals desirable traits such as a high level of conscientiousness
and self-control.
These behaviors and possessions that are used for communicating one’s
traits and that are not costly signals are called in scientific terms “fitness
indicators”.
Communicating one’s desirable traits (social / mating value) and
subsequently entering a competition with other people is done through a mix of costly
signals and fitness indicators.
As I mentioned earlier, competition among individuals aimed at
gaining status is deeply rooted in human nature. Sure, some will say that
it is good, some say that it is bad. They are “both” right. Sometimes it is
useful to emphasize on competition. For example social competition is the
driver of the luxury and mobile electronics business sectors and without
emphasizing on “keeping pace” these markets would shrink considerably. Is this
good? Depends for who, I guess.
Another example comes from Human
Resources Management and concerns competition among co-workers. Competition
exists whether you like it or not. The question is if you should encourage or discourage
it. Think for example at “fashion” competition among co-workers. If one colleague
starts wearing only high-end designer clothes and she is appreciated (and
envied) by her colleagues, sooner or later another person will start wearing
only designer clothes and this time even more expensive. Before you know it,
the office will become a real “cat walk” and the consequence will be
frustration and significantly lower disposable incomes (probably followed by a
general request for pay raises).
In the end I would like to reach
a rather sensitive topic, namely social competition
based on consumerism. Everyone needs status and buying stuff is a simple
way of doing so. I have nothing against capitalism and consumption (after all I
lived in a communist and post-communist society for half of my life). At the
same time, when social competition
escalates in the area of consumerism, I believe that in the end we are all
worse off.
Indeed firms sell more, but what
happens is that we end up with a lot of stuff that we don’t use and with a lot
of money spent on things that don’t make us happy. Social competition is natural and in fact very useful for society, but
my belief is that consumerism is not the only “field of battle”.
Instead of buying the latest
smartphone when the old (1 year) one works perfectly fine, wouldn’t it be
better to use the 400-500 Euros to go on a nice weekend somewhere new? You can
communicate your “Openness” either way. Instead of showing how smart we are by
purchasing complicated to use devices that we show of in front of our social
group, wouldn’t it be better to gather the group and play cards or scrabble
that also show how smart we are?
To conclude, think of the
following numbers:
A regular car costs about 15.000
euros. A SUV costs about 30.000. The difference is 15.000 which is the exact
amount for doing a 1 year master at a good university in The Netherlands (EU
tuition fee plus decent living expenses and money for books).
Both the SUV (upgrade from a
regular car) and the 1 year Master studies are not essential to life, but if we
want to show how great we are and get some benefits, which do you think should
be prioritized?
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