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The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature, by Gad Saad
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Review
"What's your guilty pleasure? Junk food? Fast cars? Champagne? To shop until you drop? What makes consumers tick? Psychologist Gad Saad writes of the innate needs, preferences, and drives that spur many of our most treasured appetites and behaviors—all soft-wired into the human brain in deep history for purposes of survival and reproduction. We are natural born consumers. And as Saad elegantly examines our daily rituals and tastes (and he gives us troves of fascinating data from around the world), he brings our common human heritage to life. I'll never look at my high-heeled shoes or a buffet the same way again. It's a smart read for all who sell, all who buy, and all who really want to understand others and themselves. You may even come away thinking: I consume, therefore I am." --Helen Fisher, PhD, Biological Anthropologist, Rutgers University and author of Why Him? Why Her? "I urge you to consume The Consuming Instinct! Using cogent examples from popular culture deftly mixed with an expert's grasp of modern evolutionary biology, Dr. Saad shows how our biology underlies our consumer choices. Like nothing else on the market today, it will help you understand why we purchase and pay attention as we do. Indeed, never has science for the lay-person been presented more cogently or accessibly when it comes to our daily economic activities." --David P. Barash, professor of psychology, University of Washington and co-author of Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression and Take Revenge "Juicy burgers, Ferraris, pornography, and gift giving are the stuff of human nature. Evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad tells us just how and why, and much more, in The Consuming Instinct. With wit, charm, and crystal clarity, Saad lays bare the evolutionary underpinnings of consumerism." --Todd K. Shackelford, Ph.D., professor and Chair of Psychology, Oakland University, editor, Evolutionary Psychology (epjournal.net) "What the jacket does not say is just how entertaining, enlightening and informative this book is as Saad reveals the reasons behind consumers' preferences for fat burgers, fancy cars and the trendiest fashions…By putting forward the idea of evolutionary economics, Saad opens up new concepts in marketing as well as a much clearer understanding of why we respond to certain products the way we do…For those curious about the reasons people spend their hard-earned money on the things they do, presented in an understandable format then look no further." --Monsters and Critics
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About the Author
Gad Saad, Ph.D. (Montreal, Canada), a popular blogger for Psychology Today ("Homo-Consumericus"), is a professor of marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. He holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption and is the author of The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption, plus numerous scientific papers.
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Product details
Hardcover: 374 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books; First Edition edition (June 21, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616144297
ISBN-13: 978-1616144296
Product Dimensions:
6.2 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.3 out of 5 stars
50 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#89,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Not what I was hoping for. I am a fan of Professor Saad and follow him closely but was surprisingly dissappointed with the contents of this book. I was hoping this book would contain more applicable knowledge in regard to consumer behavior, but the book instead reads as a justification for evolutionary psychology; as if he is trying to convince me that his views are correct instead of inform me about how to use this knowledge. Essentially, the book is a sales brochure for EP that fails to provide any realistic applicable knowledge. My only real takeaway was: "What's the point?"
Before reading this book I only knew of the Gad Father from his youtube channel. His book is an interesting look at the scientific reasons men and woman want what they want. His personality definitely comes through in the book and it is not a detriment. I wish it went a little deeper into the research it seems like it was written for the layman too much, as a layman it wish it went a bit deeper. If this was designed to be an intro into Evolutionary Psychology then mission accomplished. I plan on reading more into this topic from other authors and hope this isn't his only book.
As a safety engineer for 20+ years of my career, I was first dumbfounded then intrigued by different people’s approach to making safety investment decisions. I’ve been investigating irrationality and biases for several years. This book provides a useful paradigm for understanding where these strange behaviors originated. Some additional discussion of the breadth of distribution of drives within each gender would have been appreciated (i.e. how broad is the bell curve and how far apart are the peaks). Definitely recommended.
Gad Saad explains his theories of an evolutionary basis for consumer behavior. Since the evolution of the human brain mostly took place before modern civilization, the concerns, cravings, and aspirations of our hunter-gatherer ancestors out in the Paleolithic wilderness are the same ones that drive us in the wilds of the modern malls, clubs, and churches. This is backed up with meticulous notes from Gad’s and others empirical research into evolutionary psychology, consumer ethnography, behavioral finance, sociobiology, and myriad other subjects.There's an equal treatment of theory and application. For example, it's joked about and much supposed that women find men in expensive cars more attractive. It makes some sense that high status men have more resources to provide, but can it be true in our sophisticated, post-modern society? It turns out it is. Studies are presented that show women find men, any men, attractive in an expensive car. The luxury and prestige of the car is transferred to the man driving it. It's also shown that men's testosterone level increases when driving an expensive sports car as opposed to driving a regular car. Clearly there are unconscious patterns at work in consumers' minds that fit patterns that have developed long ago and are still with us.There are many other examples and presentations. One notable subject for which the author a lot of attention for is his criticism of religion and defense of atheism. There’s not much more I can add to that debate, but I think Gad’s own research frames the issue in surprising ways. Although he does give his thoughts about the idea of God (he obviously doesn’t believe in it), the complaints, similar to other atheists and agnostics, are mostly with the practice of religion. Considering his family's experiences with religious conflicts, which he touches on in his chapter about altruism and social networks, his view is understandable. Religion is practiced by flawed people beholden to evolutionary urges, so obviously there are going to be problems, some serious. However, the same cultural and evolutionary forces that, say, shape a group to become more cohesive and conforming in times of stress also shape them to be more religious. There are desires and cravings that prompt scandalous acts, but there are also virtuous values that result in good ones. Religion may be a way to exploit our evolutionary behavior, or, just as plausible, it's a product of our evolutionary behavior. Regardless of how you feel about, it's an important topic worth considering.Another part that was of particular interest to me was his thoughts on the intersection of neuroscience and business. One imagines the purveyors of neuro-this and neuro-that consulting some turn-of-the-century pathological illustration of the brain diagrammed with each part associated with some function. The hippocampus controls organization, the amygdala controls fear, the basal ganglia controls some other thing, etc. Fortunately, Gad puts this confusion of the-map-for-the-territory reductivism to rest. Complex systems such as human behavior and personality are much more than the sum of their parts. There isn't a magic bullet to control or program them. The best explanations to deal with them holistically are decision heuristics governed by evolutionary psychology such as what is presented in The Consuming Instinct.This book was enjoyable and informative. Anyone involved in selling products to consumers, studying their behavior, or even just wishing to get more insight in their own consuming habits will find this book valuable. Highly recommended.
The aphorist, Aaron Haspel, once wrote: “Once you see human interaction as a contest to signal mating fitness, you never see it as anything else.†That’s both interesting and true, but for the purposes of this review, I’m going to need to paint with a broader brush: once you see all aspects of human existence as a product of evolution, you never see them as anything else. Modern-day consumerism is no exception and it’s the subject of Gad Saad’s fantastic book The Consuming Instinct.Saad is a professor of marketing at Concordia University and writes a popular blog at Psychology Today called Homo Consumericus. Using various parts of evolutionary theory, Saad dissects modern-day consumer behavior with applaudable gusto. Parts of his analysis are sure to be offensive to some, which suggests to me that he’s on to something. As a general rule of thumb, if some people are strongly offended by an idea, it’s worth giving it special consideration. This is because many truths simply aren’t all that pleasant. Many people respond to these types of books with knee-jerk reactions full of personal attacks and hatred because they confuse positive statements with normative ones. I would urge these people to consider that explaining how things are says nothing about how they ought to be.The subtitle of the book is What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature. Not surprisingly, they reveal quite a bit. These four items speak to the four Darwinian pursuits that underlie human existence: survival, reproduction, kin selection, and reciprocity. The consuming instinct, then, can be studied under the lens of evolutionary psychology (EP), which is a theoretical framework that proposes that the human mind evolved by the same Darwinian forces that shaped all animals. The human brain is simply another product of the dual evolutionary processes called natural selection and sexual selection. More people are familiar with former and not the latter, which can explain things like art, religion, and consumer behavior.It’s worth noting that amongst those who believe in evolution, there seems to be a small contingent of people who believe that evolution can explain the human foot, but anything above the neck is off limits. In other words, they are hesitant to give any credence to the field of evolutionary psychology because they don’t like some of the logical implications that follow. Like Saad, I believe this is an egregious mistake. The human brain is an amazing thing, but the fact that some people want to elevate it to something that was created outside the bounds of the natural world is silly. I think Malcolm de Chazal would remind us of the following: “Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into the mirror, he sees a monkey.â€Political correctness be damned, Saad takes a refreshing and no holds barred approach to debunking the myths of social constructivism, particularly the myths surrounding gender differences. The Harvard evolutionist E. O. Wilson, once said: “The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool.†Anyone who understands the power of evolutionary theory will understand that marketing efforts for products that don’t align with our natural instincts are doomed to fail. Excellent marketers are intuitively well aware of this reality too — they understand that the way to market beer to men is different than is way to market cosmetics to women.There is a reason why men consume more pornography, more Ferraris, and are more likely to participate in extreme sports than are women. These differences are due to a deep rooted evolutionary causes and it’s a sad state of affairs when one is considered a cultural deviant for suggesting that men and women, thanks to the process of evolution, have deep biological differences. I’ll proudly wear the label of “cultural deviant†if that’s the term used to describe people who are more interested in knowing the truth than they are in hearing fictitious, yet comforting stories.Here’s an interesting fact from the book: studies show that when men drive a Porsche they experience an increase in testosterone levels. It appears that the mere act of sexual signaling can cause an increase in testosterone in men. How many men would care about driving a Porsche if no one were around to watch though? I suspect that the answer is not many. I think this is why you see men cruising around in Porsches and Ferraris in crowded hotspots like Chicago’s Viagra Triangle on a Saturday night and not in downtown Longmont, Colorado. This, of course, prompts an interesting philosophical question: If a sexual signal is flashed and no one is there to receive it, does it really exist?Another thing that’s bound to upset social constructivists is that universal metrics of beauty do exist, and are not arbitrary social constructs. Studies show that a deep male voice is universally attractive, which makes sense since it indicates a greater exposure to pubertal testosterone. Studies also show that women with the optimum waist-to-hip ratio of around 0.7 are preferred by men around the world. Universally, for men, achieving high status in the social hierarchy matters greatly if one wants to be an attractive mate, while, for women, it’s physical beauty that matters most.One of my favorite chapters was called “Marketing Hope by Selling Liesâ€. In the chapter Saad explains that there are many unpleasant biological-based realities, like aging, mortality, sexual boredom in monogamous relationships, and the fact that children are born with innate differences in abilities. Marketers, and self-help gurus of all varieties, see this as an opportunity. After-all, it provides them a chance to sell hope, which is often nothing but an especially insidious form of snake oil.Saad sees religion as the greatest (and perhaps evilest) product ever devised. He writes: “Religion possesses unique attributes that render it a marketer’s dream product.†Indeed it is. A number of televangelists get in front of audience every Sunday and tell their delusional, yet optimistic followers that God has great things in store for them in the afterlife if only they give up their worldly possessions to their preacher in this life. Don’t worry, God wants the preacher to have your money — apparently He said so. Alas, these religious charlatans are smart enough to know that it helps to plant the seed of fear early if you want to swindle people out of their money later in life.The Argentine shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis once famously said: “If women didn’t exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.†Even if you already intuitively understand why that is so, I highly recommend reading The Consuming Instinct anyway.
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