Cognitive Design

Conspicuous consumption for men and conspicuous charity for women. 

The New Scientist reports on an interesting series of studies that examines how being mating-primed shapes our behaviors.  The study, Sex and Shopping – it’s a guy thing, reports:

“The results were dramatic: men in the mating condition said they would spend much more money than men in the non-mating condition – for example, they might take the European vacation rather than saving that money – but there was no mating effect on women’s consumption decisions. On the other hand, women in the mating condition said they would spend much more time volunteering than women in the non-mating condition. There was no mating effect on men’s volunteering. This study confirmed that conspicuous consumption (for men) and conspicuous charity (for women) can be increased by thinking about mating opportunities, and so can function strategically as a form of mating display.”

The seeming differences between men and women can be explained with costly signalling theory or the idea that “that animals, including humans, use costly, intricate and hard-to-fake signals to flaunt their biological fitness to potential mates and social partners.” 

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 9:35 am and is filed under Psychographics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.