Chapter 19

Why we buy: evolution, marketing, and

consumer behaviour
Vladas Griskevicius, Joshua M. Ackerman, and
Joseph P. Redden

Because advertising, effective advertising, is an appeal to human

fundamental needs, desires, and motivations, it is an appeal to
basic human nature. People the world over have… the same
ambitions, the same egotism, the same temptations. The setting
changes, the climate, the culture, the idiom, but the basic
human nature is the same everywhere.
Leo (1964, pp. 181–182)

Introduction
Researchers have been examining consumer behaviour, marketing, and advertising for
nearly a century. Yet almost none of this work has considered why we buy the things we
buy from an evolutionary perspective. After all, our ancestors did not shop at the
supermarket giant Wal- Mart; people do not have genes for preferring the soft drink Coke
over Pepsi; and shoppers rarely deliberate how a purchase will help propagate their genes.
In this chapter we discuss how a closer inspection of our ancestral roots can provide
important insight into the underlying motives driving our purchases. Scholars and
marketers are just begin- ning to consider evolutionary influences on modern marketing
and consumer behaviour (e.g. Saad 2007; Miller 2009; Griskevicius et al. 2009a). Because
Homo sapiens is an ultra-social species, an evolutionary perspective suggests that people
interact with the present-day world using brains that evolved to confront recurring social
challenges faced in ancestral environments. For exam- ple, our ancestors had to solve the
social challenges of attracting and retaining a mate, affiliating with others, protecting
themselves from danger, gaining status, and caring for family. As we dis- cuss later, these
deep-seated evolutionary motives continue to drive modern consumer behav- iour, albeit
rarely in obvious or conscious ways.
Consider that the majority of people’s monthly income is spent on clothing, housing,
and transportation. 1 What motivates our consumption choices? Fundamentally, the answer
is straight- forward: we buy clothing to stay warm, transportation because we need to get
from point A to

1 From www.visualeconomics.com/how-the-average-us-consumer-spends-their-paycheck/
312 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

point B, and housing because we need shelter from the elements. Yet people typically do
not pur- chase the first product they encounter; rather, consumers often decide on a
purchase while facing multiple options. Thus, the relevant question for marketers is why
someone chooses to buy one car, house or pair of shoes over another. The answer is rarely
that the purchased car is more effec- tive at getting a person from point A to point B, that
the house provides superior shelter, or that the shoes are better at protecting one from the
elements. Indeed, although a pair of shoes may cost
£15 to produce, some consumers have been persuaded to pay £150 for such leather
coverings, even when they are fully aware that the shoes are functionally equivalent to
another pair half its price. What drives these types of decisions?
Our goal in this chapter is to show how an evolutionary perspective on motivation
relates to consumer behaviour. This approach can encourage marketers and advertisers to
better meet the evolutionary needs of consumers, and help consumers make more
informed decisions. First, we provide an overview to a modern evolutionary approach to
consumer behaviour. Next, we present the evolutionary social motives that continue to
drive modern behaviour, highlighting emerging findings relevant to marketing. Finally,
we discuss implications of evolutionary motivations for marketers, including how they
can be applied to market segmentation, consumer targeting, and brand positioning.

A modern evolutionary approach to

consumer behaviour
A modern evolutionary approach is based on the seminal work of Charles Darwin (1859,
1871). This approach suggests that, just as the forces of natural selection can shape
morphological fea- tures, so they can shape psychological and behavioural tendencies. An
evolutionary approach maintains that human and non-human animals inherit brains and
bodies equipped to behave in ways that are adaptive—that are fitted to the demands of the
environments within which their ancestors evolved. Just as human morphological features
have been shaped by evolutionary pres- sures, our brains are designed to solve recurrent
problems in the ancestral world (Tooby and Cosmides 1992; Buss 1995; Barrett et al.
2002). Below we review two key distinguishing features of a modern evolutionary approach
to consumer behaviour.

Distinguishing proximate and ultimate

levels of explanation
An evolutionary approach asks the following question about a behaviour: What could be its
adap- tive (ultimate) function? That is, how might it have helped our ancestors survive,
reproduce, or solve another ancestral challenge? This approach is concerned with a
particular type of ‘why’ question. For example, when asking why children prefer doughnuts
to spinach, one answer is that doughnuts taste better and produce more pleasure than
spinach. An evolutionary approach, how- ever, would also ask why doughnuts taste better
than spinach in the first place. In this case, the reason is because humans have inherited a
preference for fatty and sweet foods (originally meat and ripe fruit, etc.) which provided
our ancestors with much-needed calories in a food-scarce environment. An evolutionary
perspective thus draws an important distinction (see Tinbergen 1963) between the more
mechanistic proximate explanations (the first answer) and strategic ultimate explanations
(the second answer).
Marketers, like most social scientists, have typically been concerned with proximate
levels of explanations. Proximate explanations for purchasing behaviour include factors
such as prefer- ences, learning, attitudes, values, presentation of information, emotions,
and personality. For example, in the popular book Why We Buy (Underhill 2000), the
reasons given for why we
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 313

buy are all proximate reasons, such as a product’s location in a store and its specific
placement on a shelf. However, an evolutionary perspective contends that it is also
important to consider the ultimate reasons for why people buy what they do.
Proximate and ultimate explanations are not competitors; they are complementary
perspec- tives. For instance, it is misguided to ask if a man bought an expensive sports car
because it makes him feel good (a proximate reason) or because it enhances his
reproductive opportunities (an ultimate reason). Both explanations can be correct, each
explaining the same behaviour at a different level of analysis. The important point is that
neglecting ultimate reasons for behaviour can limit or hinder marketing strategies. For
example, if an organization desired to curb con- spicuous consumption by dissuading
people from purchasing pricey sports cars, ignoring ulti- mate reasons for such purchases
might lead to a marketing strategy that tries to persuade people that expensive sports cars
shouldn’t make them feel good. This kind of a strategy is likely to be fighting an uphill
battle.
Finally, an evolutionary approach does not presume that people will be conscious of the
ulti- mate reasons for their behaviour; indeed, research has shown that such motives
often guide behaviours in an automatic and non-conscious manner (e.g. Barrett and
Kurzban 2006; Kenrick et al. 2010a). However it does highlight that people usually have
multiple motives for a given behaviour.

The mind evolved to solve adaptive challenges

An evolutionary approach also does not assume that humans or other organisms inherit
some capacity to determine in advance which behaviours will enhance reproductive fitness.
Instead, many organisms, including humans, have evolved motivations that increase the
probability of solving a set of recurrent adaptive challenges confronted during the ancestral
past.
Converging evidence suggests that our minds are adapted to life in hunter-gatherer
bands of about 100–150 individuals, in an environment similar to present-day African
savannah (Dunbar 2004). As we discuss later, our ancestors needed to solve a set of
recurring social problems, such as mating, protecting themselves from danger, making
friends, gaining status, and taking care of offspring (Kenrick et al. 2010a). Individuals in
the past who did not solve these problems did not pass their genes on to us.
The notion that the mind comes equipped with motivational systems for solving
recurring adaptive problems has important implications. Foremost, this suggests that the
human mind is not a blank slate (Kenrick et al. 2010b). A blank slate approach posits
that there is no human nature, meaning that preferences and desires are determined
solely by exposure to culture or immediate context, which itself is often believed to be
arbitrarily determined (e.g. Ariely et al. 2006). Such an approach implies that marketers
can be as effective in persuading people to behave in one way as another. Advertising
campaigns, for example, might be equally capable in persuad- ing people to like spinach or
ice cream, to want friends or be a hermit, or to desire high or low status. Although blank
slate approaches might seem outdated to some readers, it is important to realize that such
approaches dominated social science research throughout the twentieth century, and
continue to be prevalent in economics, business, anthropology, sociology, and
psychology today (Pinker 2002; Tooby and Cosmides 1992).
In stark contrast to blank-slate approaches, an evolutionary perspective maintains that
there is a human nature: that humans have a set of evolved motives and dispositions
reflecting adaptive psychologies that helped solve recurring challenges confronted
during the ancestral past. According to this perspective, human preferences, desires, and
inclinations are not infinitely mal- leable. Instead, people across cultures are more likely to
learn one thing than another, and to care about and desire some things more than others
(Hsee et al. 2009). An evolutionary approach
314 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

suggests that marketers can be more effective at changing people’s behaviours and
persuading them to adopt new practices through strategic communication that considers the
evolutionary motives behind why we buy.

Evolutionary social motives and consumer behaviour

To best understand the evolved motivational structure of the mind, we need to identify the
recur- rent adaptive problems that ancestral humans faced. Although there are an
innumerable number of goals that people pursue throughout their lives, there is remarkable
commonality in the ulti- mate purposes these goals serve. Like all other animals, for
example, at a base level our ancestors needed nourishment and shelter. Because humans are
intensely social animals, however, we also faced significant and recurrent social problems
whose solutions have important implications for modern consumer behaviour. Indeed,
researchers reviewing cognitive, behavioural, neurophysi- ological, cross-cultural, and
cross-species evidence have suggested a number of ways of organiz- ing fundamental social
motives that are critically relevant to humans (Fiske 1992; Buss 1999; Bugental 2000;
Kenrick et al. 2003, 2010; Ackerman and Kenrick 2008). These frameworks con- verge on a
core set of ultimate social motives that include attracting and retaining mates, protect- ing
oneself from interpersonal dangers, making friends, gaining status and power, and caring
for offspring.
All individuals possess this core set of ultimate motives and associated motivational
systems inherited from our ancestors. Each motive can have strong effects on behaviour
depending on its degree of activation within an individual. Although the power of a given
motive can be temporar- ily increased by features of the situation (e.g. a job opening may
activate status concerns), the relative enduring strength of each motive can be
conceptualized as an aspect of an individual’s personality. This means that for a given
individual, some of these evolutionary motives are much more likely to be chronically
active (e.g. some people are persistently focused on status pursuit), while others are less
influential. Below, we discuss the workings of each of these evolutionary social motives,
highlighting emerging findings relevant to marketing and consumer behaviour.

Romantic partner attraction

The motive to attract romantic partners lies at the heart of an evolutionary approach,
whereby maximizing reproduction is the name of the game. Attracting a mate is not merely
about sex. Instead, it involves a two-sided, yin-and-yang set of challenges and
opportunities: choosing between potential mates and being chosen by them. Thus, a mate-
attraction motive drives both evaluation and display. For instance, people attempt to
discern a potential partner’s status and resources, physical attractiveness, and attributes such
as kindness and intelligence (e.g. Buss 1989; Li et al. 2002; Li and Kenrick 2006). Because
such qualities are valued by perceivers interested in finding mates, such qualities are also
put on heightened display (for example, in the products and brands we choose to wear,
drive, and consume). Although the motive to attract a mate is univer- sal, individuals differ
in the extent to which they are chronically motivated to repeatedly pursue this goal
(Simpson and Gangestad 1991).
The motive to attract a mate operates on many types of behaviours. For example, men moti-
vated to attract mates exhibit more creative thinking, heroic helping, gift-giving, impulsive deci-
sion-making, and desire to purchase conspicuous goods (Griskevicius et al. 2006; Griskevicius
et al. 2007; Saad and Gill 2003; Wilson and Daly 2004; Sundie et al. 2011). This motive also
has specific influences on men’s financial decisions, such as erasing loss aversion for men (Li
et al. 2010). These types of behavioural changes lead men to be more appealing as mates, and
encour- age them to act quickly when mating opportunities present themselves. Women
are also affected
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 315

by a mate-attraction motive, for example by becoming more benevolent (Griskevicius et

al. 2007). Women are also influenced by relevant internal factors such as hormonal
fluctuations associated with the monthly ovulatory cycle. During the peak fertility phase,
women’s mate-at- traction motive tends to be more chronically active, leading women to
non-consciously prefer products that will make them more alluring at this time (Durante et
al. 2011).

Romantic partner retention

Issues involved in maintaining partnerships are qualitatively different from those
involved in acquiring mates. For example, a man who expends a great deal of resources to
throw a big party may impress a woman he is interested in dating, but the same behaviour
may indicate a lack of commitment once the two are married. A mate-retention motive
involves both maintenance of current relationship bonds and managing potential
romantic competitors (Campbell and Ellis 2005). Emotionally, whereas a mate-attraction
motive is linked to feelings of lust, a mate-retention motive is linked to feelings of romantic
love and jealousy (Kenrick and Shiota 2008).
As with the mate attraction motive, individuals differ in the extent to which they are
motivated to retain a mate (Maner et al. 2007a). Individuals high in this motive are more
likely to show increased levels of love and care for their current partner, of physical and verbal
possession sig- nals, and of elevated resource display and appearance enhancement (Buss and
Shackelford 1997). Even simply imagining one’s partner displaying romantic interest in another
person can increase vigilance, including increasing attention to and memory for potential
competitors (Maner et al. 2007a, 2009). As with a mate-attraction motive, one method of
retaining a mate is through gifts (Saad and Gill 2003). Indeed, men’s mate retention motives
and purchase of gifts for their partner increase when their romantic partner is ovulating
(Pillsworth and Haselton 2006), suggesting that men may not always be fully conscious of the
reasons for these purchases.

Protecting oneself from physical harm

Before one can attract or retain a mate, one must first survive long enough to be able to
repro- duce. Thus, our ancestors had to be successful at avoiding physical dangers and
disease that stem from interpersonal contact. Because self-protection is imperative from an
evolutionary perspec- tive, the mind is designed to be hyper-sensitive to threats, even if
such threats are ambiguous or hypothetical, similar to how a sensitive smoke detector
detects and acts upon the tiniest bit of evidence indicating potential danger at the cost of
occasional false alarms (Nesse 2005; Haselton and Nettle 2006). The self-protection motive
is facilitated by the emotions of fear and disgust (Kenrick and Shiota 2008). Although
everyone is at least somewhat motivated to protect them- selves from physical harm, there
are individual differences in this motive, whereby some indi- viduals are chronically
worried about danger or disease and others take risks with abandon (Altemeyer 1988;
Duncan et al. 2009; Tybur et al. 2009).
Self-protection principally involves the avoidance of threats (e.g. violence, disease) from
other people. To aid this goal, a self-protection motive increases people’s sensitivity to
certain features of a person or object, including unfamiliarity, physical abnormality, and
membership in other religions, races, or other out-groups (e.g. Cottrell and Faulkner et
al. 2004; Neuberg 2005; Ackerman et al. 2007; Ackerman et al. 2009a). Such cues may
have signalled an elevated potential for harm in ancestral times, meaning that a self-
protection motive promotes biases designed to improve protection against heuristically
dangerous others (e.g. Shapiro et al. 2009).
A motive for self-protection has been shown to affect a variety of behaviours relevant for
con- sumer behaviour. For example, it leads people to take less risk in financial
decisions and to become more loss-averse (Lerner and Keltner 2001; Li et al. 2010). A self-
protection motive also
316 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

promotes a ‘strength in numbers’ response, leading people to become more conforming and
band together with similar others (e.g. Kugihara 2005; Griskevicius et al. 2006b). For example,
advertising messages appealing to the behaviours of the masses (e.g. ‘this product has been pur-
chased by over a million people’) are more persuasive when a self-protection motive is active
(Griskevicius et al. 2009a). Accordingly, the motive for self-protection is associated with
increased preferences for, and defence of, the status quo (e.g. Jost and Hunyady 2005), and
people chroni- cally concerned with self-protection (e.g. disease vulnerability) are also quicker
to show avoidant physical behaviours (Mortensen et al. 2010).

Forming friendships
People who were hermits and loners are unlikely to have passed on their genes. Our
ancestors lived within social groups much as we do now, and the motivation to form
alliances with non-kin would have been highly valuable (e.g. Baumeister and Leary 1995).
Friendship is an important way of managing potential dangers, receiving support, and
exerting control over the world. Friendships often begin as reciprocal relationships,
with favours being equally exchanged, but over time they can become more communal
and trusting (Clark et al. 1986; Lydon et al. 1997). Individual differences exist in this
universal motive, whereby some people are more moti- vated to pursue and maintain
friendships and are likewise more sensitive to social rejection (Maner et al. 2007c).
An affiliation motive can have powerful influences on behaviour. It encourages
psychological connection with others, which can lead one person to treat another person’s
actions as their own. For example, people take on the personality characteristics of othe rs
(Goldstein and Cialdini 2007), become vicariously depleted by the self-control actions of
others (Ackerman et al. 2009b), and even feel the pain of other people (Jackson et al. 2006).
A friendship motive is especially strong when social relationships are threatened. For
instance, social rejection promotes the rein- forcement of existing friendships, and
motivates behaviours to make new friends (Maner et al. 2007c). This affiliative response
can lead people to spend more money on relationship-affirming products and even on items
that a friend enjoys but the purchaser does not (Mead et al. 2011). People’s relationships
with brands can also mimic those they have with friends, and people feel the sting of brand
transgressions much like they do the slights of friends (Aaker et al. 2004).

Gaining status
Humans also desire power and prestige in their groups. Because ‘success’ in evolution is
always relative to the fate of competitors, an evolutionary perspective highlights the
importance of a motivation to attain relative status, which can result in greater
interpersonal influence (Miller et al. 1995), material resources (Cummins 1998), self-
esteem (Tesser 1988), and health (Marmot 2004). Because a desire for status is associated
with both climbing a social hierarchy and protect- ing one’s position in that hierarchy, this
motive is related to both feelings of pride and anger (Kenrick and Shiota 2008). Again,
there are individual differences in this universal motive (e.g. McClelland 1975), whereby
some people are more motivated to pursue status and are more sensi- tive to losses in status.
For example, although status is important for both sexes, status tends to afford more
benefits to men. This is because men’s value as a mate is often related to their social and
economic status (Buss 1989; Li et al. 2002), leading men to be relatively more sensitive
to status losses (Daly and Wilson 1988; Gutierres et al. 1999).
An evolutionary approach highlights two main routes by which to attain status (Henrich
and Gil-White 2001): through dominance (e.g. overpowering others and forcing deference)
or through prestige (freely conferred deference). Although status motives can lead to
more dominant and
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 317

aggressive behaviour (Griskevicius et al. 2009b), cultural prescriptions often encourage humans
to seek status through prestige rather than dominance. For example, self-sacrifice for a group
has been shown to increase the self-sacrificer’s status, including the likelihood that the person
will be selected as a leader (Hardy and Van Vugt 2006). Once status has been obtained, people
exhibit a number of biases designed to preserve their status. For example, threats to one’s
position in a hierarchy may lead to more conservative behaviour patterns (Maner et al. 2007b)
and to sacrifice group goals for personal goals (Maner and Mead 2010). A status motive is also
directly related to the acquisition of products that signal elevated status and power. For
example, status-seeking individuals will pay more for luxury and reputational goods (Rucker
and Galinsky 2008), and status motives can lead people to choose ‘green’ products over
counterpart non-green products because doing so enhances their reputations (Griskevicius et al.
2010). When status-signalling goods are unattainable, status motives can even lead to purchase
of counterfeit products (Wilcox et al. 2009).

Kin care
Because human offspring are altricial, the motive to care for offspring is of central
importance to evolutionary success. The care and support people provide to their children
and close relatives is driven by a fundamentally different evolutionary process than when
benefits are provided to unrelated individuals. Relatives’ overlapping genetic structure
allows for cooperation to emerge in the absence of reciprocal norms or laws, because help
given by one person to a biological rela- tive provides a net benefit to the genes shared
between those individuals (inclusive fitness: Hamilton 1964). Indeed, people give higher
value gifts to closer kin (Saad and Gill 2003); after death, inheritance bequests follow the
same principle (Smith et al. 1987).
The motive for kin care is related to feelings of nurturance (Kenrick and Shiota 2008),
whereby a person motivated by kin care is more likely to be pro-social and relatively
unconcerned with having their support returned in an equitable fashion. Note that a kin care
motive is not the same as a desire to have children. Instead, the kin care system evolved to
motivate investment into assisting helpless others that are nearby, typically one’s offspring but
in the modern world the same system can motivate giving to helpless strangers (e.g. starving
children in Africa) or even taking care of puppies and kittens. Once more, although all people
possess a motive for kin care, individual differences exist (e.g. Oyserman et al. 2002), whereby
some people are more motivated to care for others and more sensitive to pain felt by close
others.
Surprisingly little research has examined how a kin care motive influences behaviour.
One interesting set of findings comes from research in organizational behaviour. Family
businesses have always made up a substantial portion of the corporate world, with
estimates as high as 90% for all businesses in the US, including 37% of the Fortune 500
companies. 2 As Fritz (1997, p. 51) notes: ‘A Chinese proverb says – with less whimsy and
more hard-nosed sense than most – “You can only trust close relatives”’. Research on firms has
uncovered a puzzling occurrence: family- run firms tend to perform better and operate more
efficiently, yet the nepotism they engender can lead to free-riding and worsening
performance in subsequent generations (McConaughy et al. 2001; Perez-Gonzalez 2006;
see also Chapter 4, this volume). Despite these potential downsides, organizations often try
to capitalize on the fitness gains likely to accompany genetic relatedness by providing
messages that amplify feelings of psychological kinship (Bailey 1988), including
reminders of similarity, common goals, and even using fictive kinship terminology.

2 Data
from the University of Tulsa College of Business Administration (2000).
www.galstar.com/~persson/ fobi2/
318 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

Marketing applications
In our introduction, we noted that one of the most important questions for marketers is
why people prefer one product over another. Consideration of the six evolutionary
social motives reviewed in the ‘Evolutionary social motives and consumer behaviour’ section
can help marketers answer this question more successfully by providing insight into the
ultimate reasons why con- sumers buy. In fact, an evolutionary perspective of consumer
motivation can add value to nearly every aspect of marketing strategy, helping firms more
effectively segment consumers, target consumers, and position brands—three activities
that are often cited as the key components of developing a successful marketing strategy
(Kotler 1999). Below we discuss in more detail how an evolutionary approach to consumer
motivation can be applied to these and other aspects of marketing, including
advertising and persuasion.

Customer segmentation
Marketers would like to be able to customize each product and message for each i ndividual
con- sumer. However, such a resource-intensive approach is often impractical. Marketers
also realize that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is usually largely ineffective. To balance these
needs, marketers have long realized the importance of segmenting their customers
(Hotelling 1929; Smith 1956). Marketers try to group consumers into a limited number of
segments, hoping that those within a specific segment will like and want the same things,
while people in different segments will like and want different things (Wedel and
Kamakura 2000). The process of segmentation is like play- ing a game of 20 questions,
whereby one person is trying to figure out what another is thinking. Just as in the game,
marketers attempt to read the mind of consumers, trying to extract what a consumer wants.
Unlike the game, however, marketers get only a couple of questions to figure this out.
Nevertheless, making marketing decisions at the segment level simplifies marketing
planning and communications, allowing marketers to customize the strategy and message to
each segment.
The critical question for a marketer is what basis to use for segmenting consumers.
Perhaps the most commonly used methods are demographics such as gender, age, and
income. For example, when deciding which specific offers to send to which customers,
many direct marketers rely on a database called PRIZM. This database uses zip codes to
segment consumers, the assumption being that this indicates some information about that
person’s demographics, which should relate to what they want and need. Unfortunately,
segmenting consumers in this way often produces little useful information to predict what
people want beyond broad generalities (Yankelovich and Meer 2006). Similarly
disappointing results have been found when marketers attempt to segment based on
psychographic variables such as lifestyle, interests, and aspirations. For example, one
popular psychographic method is the VALS (Values and Lifestyles) approach, which
categorizes people based on their level of innovation and access to resources. VALS
segments include ‘Innovators’ on the leading edge, ‘Thinkers’ who are motivated by ideals, and
‘Strivers’ focused on achievement. The idea underlying psychographic approaches is that
what someone values is related to the products and brands they want to buy.
Unfortunately, much like demographic- based approaches, these methods are often poor
predictors of actual consumer behaviour (Bucklin et al. 1995; Rossi et al. 1996; Fennell et
al. 2003).
An evolutionary approach suggests that marketers should segment based on consumer
needs (i.e. the desires and motives that drive consumer purchases). Although marketers
understand that consumer needs are important (e.g. most successful marketers run
focus groups and conduct interviews and surveys), such efforts at segmentation have
been plagued by three critical issues. First, most efforts have attempted to segment based on
proximate needs. Because consumers have
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 319

an innumerable number of proximate needs, however, this makes it difficult to identify the
spe- cific needs to examine, to hone in on a few needs that work best, and to define a
theoretically- based taxonomy. Second, proximate needs by their very nature are
typically specific to a particular product category, often even to a particular product
model. Thus, identifying the spe- cific proximate needs to create a segmentation scheme for
one product typically has little use for marketing other products. Because the set of
proximate needs is constantly changing from prod- uct to product (and between product
categories), this lack of consistency makes it difficult to use such approaches to manage
customer relationships or develop an optimal portfolio of products. Third, the
methodologies marketers use in hope of uncovering consumer needs (e.g. focus groups,
surveys) often makes it impossible that the ultimate needs driving purchases will be
revealed. Given that people often have no idea why they did something (Nisbett and
Wilson 1977; Nolan et al. 2008), and given that this is especially true when trying to
uncover the evolutionary motives for a behaviour (Barrett and Kurzban 2006; Kenrick et al.
2010a), typical marketing methods of introspection and verbal descriptions will rarely be
able to uncover the ultimate need driving a behaviour.
An evolutionary framework of ultimate needs addresses all of these problems. By
focusing on a single motivation level directly connected to adaptive fitness, the number of
operational needs can be reduced to a small, manageable set of evolutionary social
motives—motives that operate as the backseat drivers of consumer behaviour, often
steering conscious decisions in unconscious ways. Of course, although the research
reviewed here suggests that the six social motives are likely to capture much of what
consumers prefer across product categories, future research is needed to examine the extent
to which these motives do indeed predict consumer preferences and pur- chases. Given that
current segmentation approaches (VALS, PRIZM, etc.) are often not very suc- cessful, any
improvement in market segmentation would be considered substantial.
Marketers should consider systematically asking about the six evolutionary motives in
their ongoing surveys. This information could be used to produce a person-specific ‘motive
profile’ for consumers, whereby this profile of evolutionary needs could be used by
different firms and for different product categories. We can easily imagine that such
consumer-specific motive profiles could be added to consumer databases, whereby
marketers could purchase this information to better understand their customers’ needs and
group them in meaningful ways. It may even be possible to develop consumers’ motive
profiles not solely through direct survey research, but based on the products that individuals
purchase.

Consumer targeting
Once a marketer has placed consumers into a limited number of segments, the next step in
strat- egy is deciding which segments to target. Targeting requires developing a plan to
reach a target segment and delivering the value of the segment to the firm. Targeting helps
firms focus their marketing efforts on a few select segments where they can be successful
and avoids wasting effort on segments that will likely never buy the product.
When choosing which targets to pursue, a firm takes into consideration factors such as the
size, growth rate, and profitability of each segment (Kotler 1991; Wedel and Kamakura 2000).
However, an often-overlooked consideration is the ability to reach a target in an
economical fashion. As with market segmentation, a key challenge includes being either
too general or too specific in targeting efforts. For example, one common way to target is
by considering the demographics of a target group. In television advertising, for instance, it
is important to take into account that one programme might be watched more by younger
female viewers, whereas another might interest older male viewers. By considering viewer
demographics, a firm marketing a low-cost cell phone
320 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

plan with unlimited text messaging might target younger viewers by advertising on
programmes that tend to appeal to youth. Unfortunately, this kind of demographic
approach is often not very economical because only a small percentage of even target
viewers may have any interest in this particular offering, yet the firm has to pay advertising
costs for reaching all viewers watching the programme. In contrast to such general
demographic approaches, a firm can also be highly spe- cific in its targeting. For
example, makers of the original Hummer sport utility vehicle (SUV) might have targeted
readers of select magazines like ‘4 Wheel & Off-Road Magazine’. Although the Hummer might
appeal to the small readership of this magazine, this targeting strategy is missing out on
potential consumers who are not automotive enthusiasts, but who might nevertheless be
interested in purchasing this kind of product.
An evolutionary approach suggests that marketers might be more effective at targeting if
they targeted based on evolutionary needs rather than on traditional segments. For
example, the low- cost cell phone plan with unlimited texting is likely to be especially
appealing to a segment with a motive profile high on friendship needs and low on status-
seeking needs (people who desire to keep in constant touch with friends but who don’t crave
the latest technology). In contrast, a large, flashy SUV is likely to appeal to a segment that is
high in status-seeking and self-protection (i.e. people who might see a Hummer as a status
symbol as well as providing safety in auto accidents). The use of ultimate social motives to
form the basis of each target segment could also facilitate more economic access to
segments. For example, consider two prime-time television dramas: a police crime drama
and corporate legal drama. Each programme is watched by similar demo- graphics
(middle-aged men and women), meaning that both are essentially identical from a tra-
ditional advertising perspective. However, an evolutionary motives approach suggests that
viewers for each programme might differ systematically in their motive profiles. Whereas a
police crime drama might be watched by individuals high in the need for self-protection,
a corporate legal drama might be watched by people desiring to climb the corporate
hierarchy and gain status. Thus, a firm targeting a segment high in self-protection should
advertise on the crime drama but not on the corporate law drama, whereas a firm targeting a
status segment should take the reverse
approach.
The evolutionary social motives approach extends well beyond targeting for television
advertis- ing. Firms can use this approach to gain clues about where to find prospects in
that target group and reach them in an economical fashion. A segment with a strong kin
care motive, for example, might spend more time playing at the park, reading the lifestyle
section of the newspaper, and surfing parenting websites; whereas those with a strong
motive to form friendships might instead meet at malls, read the entertainment section, and
use social networking websites. Those with a strong desire for self-protection might be
more likely to get their information from familiar sources that are perceived as expert,
trustworthy, and sharing common core values (e.g. national TV stations and national
newspapers), while those focused on forming friendships might instead read more socially-
oriented, local materials (newspapers, magazines, websites). In summary, the social
motives of a targeted segment can inform marketers about where these peo - ple spend their
time, therefore presenting economical avenues for reaching them with a market- ing
message.

Product development and strategic messaging

Consideration of social motives can also help marketers develop improved product
offerings for a targeted segment. For example, if a segment (unconsciously) prefers designer
apparel because it raises their perceived status, then the marketer would want to emphasize
this aspect for that seg- ment. Perhaps this explains why Ralph Lauren offers shirts with
horse logos that cover nearly the
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 321

entire shirt, and Christian Louboutin adds distinctive red soles to its shoes. These seemingly
small design choices are likely to create much value in the eyes of a segment high on status-
seeking, but not for a different segment low on status-seeking. Another segment might find
value in products that satisfy other motives such as protection from danger. Such a segment
might instead prefer the REI shirt with special UV blocking technologies, for example, or
the Nike shoes with greater ankle support but minimal branding features.
In addition to improving their products, marketers might also consider how a social
motives approach can help them craft more effective messages. Such an approach could
prove especially effective in digital media (e.g. retail websites and email), where
individual customization tech- niques are already widely employed (Mulvenna et al. 2000;
Mulpuru 2007). For example, online retailers (such as Amazon.com) may not have a single,
uniform homepage; instead, the homepage that uploads on a given terminal can be
changed by the firm depending on who is accessing the site. This allows firms to
strategically decide what products to show on its homepage based on the motive profile of
the user.
E-mail and direct marketers could also use social motive profiles as a basis for deciding what
version of an advert to send. For example, messages tend to be more persuasive (Cialdini 2009)
when they incorporate either appeals to social proof (e.g. ‘over a million sold’, ‘most popular’) or
appeals to scarcity (e.g. ‘limited edition’, ‘exclusive offer’). However, a social motives approach
suggests marketers should be more strategic about when to use one type of appeal over another.
Specifically, self-protection motives enhance the effectiveness of social proof appeals, while
decreasing the effectiveness of scarcity appeals (Griskevicius et al. 2009a). Conversely, mate-
attraction motives enhance the persuasiveness of scarcity appeals, while decreasing persuasive-
ness of social proof appeals.
Because consumers’ individual social motives drive the content and manner in which
informa- tion is processed, firms should react accordingly. An evolutionary approach
suggests that market- ing should be less about trying to persuade consumers to take a
desired action and more about presenting the desired action as a natural solution to an
already-active need. Because consumers have different problems that they desire to solve
(problems that map onto the evolutionary social motives), consumers will naturally desire
the products that will help them solve the problem that is most pressing. Financial
companies, for example, should view themselves as problem solvers, whereby they offer
different solutions to different problems. Thus a company could send out two different
versions of its financial newsletter based on the motive profile of the recipients. For
customers high in self-protection motives, it could emphasize products containing cues to
safety, such as investments with guaranteed returns, insurance or inflation protection. In
contrast, for consumers high in status motives, it could emphasize products that contain
cues to power and prestige, such as exclusive financial products with potential for high
returns. Consumers are likely to prefer motive-consistent solutions even when those
consumers cannot consciously identify what motives are currently active. In these
instances, options that satisfy needs are liable to simply ‘feel right’, a concept known as
regulatory fit (Avnet and Higgins 2006).

Brand positioning
Another key decision in marketing strategy is the positioning of the brand. In branding,
market- ers want to own a particular space in the minds of consumers (Aaker 1991; Kotler
1999). For instance, when people hear the name of the car manufacturer Volvo, they
instantly think of ‘safety’. Wal-Mart and the electronics giant Apple similarly invoke the notions
of ‘low prices’ and ‘creativity’ respectively. All three firms have invested heavily in creating
these valuable brand associations. A difficult question for many brands, especially new
ones, is what associations they
322 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

should focus on making salient. Currently, marketers must sift through endless positioning
pos- sibilities with little guidance from any underlying structure or theoretical frameworks.
For exam- ple, the delivery company UPS has spent millions of dollars positioning itself as
the brown brand (‘What can brown do for you?’), the Budweiser beer brand pours its
resources into being known as the ‘King of Beers’, while many other brands spend large
amounts of money trying to be eve- rything to all people (e.g. ‘Visa is everywhere you want
to be’). Given such disparate types of positioning (that seem to be somewhat successful),
determining a brand positioning can be an overwhelming task.
An evolutionary social motives approach offers some recommendations for brand
positioning. From this perspective, a brand can successfully own one of six social niches that
map onto under- lying social motives. This means that a brand can be associated with status
(e.g. luxury), family, safety (e.g. health), mate attraction (e.g. sex appeal), friendship, or
relationship maintenance. For example, Wal-Mart is known for low prices and its brand
image and advertising is strongly linked to family, but will appeal less to those
particularly motivated by status. Similarly for Apple, although it is associated with
creativity, it owns the high-status niche for computer electronics, whereby its products are
more expensive, flashier, and more likely to be used by celebrities. In fact, Apple products
are intentionally overrepresented in television shows and Hollywood films because Apple
spends a great deal of money to ensure that their products are seen being used by
celebrities.
An important implication of an evolutionary perspective is that it will be difficult for one
brand to own multiple social motive niches. That is, because each of the six recurrent
adaptive problems is qualitatively different and requires qualitatively different solutions, it
is likely to be difficult to persuade consumers that a single brand can be highly effective at
solving multiple adaptive prob- lems. For example, although Volvo branding emphatically
emphasized safety throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, its brand positioning began to
change after it was acquired by Ford in 1999. Instead of being the safe car, Volvos began to
also be positioned as high-status, thus spanning two different evolutionary niches. Perhaps
not coincidentally, sales of Volvos and its market share plummeted in the last decade. Even
brands that have positioned their identity to attracting people in all walks of life have found
that appealing to specific motives can increase returns. Visa, which sells a product that
should be equally useful to people in any purchase situation, has found success marketing a
Black Card to select customers that is billed as the ‘world’s most prestigious credit card’.
Here, this additional sub-brand helps Visa simultaneously speak to groups with different
social motives.
The fact that a single brand is unlikely to be successful at occupying multiple evolutionary
niches has important implications for how the social motives framework can serve as a basis for
building an effective brand portfolio. For example, a firm producing beverages might consider
having different brands for beverages that serve different social evolutionary functions: the
drink to celebrate achievements (status), the family drink, the drink for hanging out with
friends, the sexy drink, the healthy drink, and the drink that keeps one’s marriage going. Coca-
Cola, for exam- ple, does not label its healthy drinks with a Coca-Cola brand; instead, this
segment is branded as Dasani and Vitamin Water.
Decisions regarding brand portfolios often have more to do with business than with
psychol- ogy. For example, General Motors had one of the most well-known brand
portfolios after acquir- ing a variety of different car manufacturers in the early 20th
century. It tried to position some of these brands based on socioeconomic status segments:
Chevrolet was the mainstream brand for middle-America; Buick was the entry-level
luxury brand; Cadillac was the premier luxury brand. Still other brands such as
Oldsmobile were positioned as being everything to all people, while Pontiac focused on
high-performance engines. Although innovative at the time, the General
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 323

Motors approach has not fared well over time, with many of the brands being discontinued
or marginalized. Although poor business practices apparently contributed to the demise of
some of these brands, an evolutionary approach suggests that General Motors would have
been wiser to position these brands along social motives such as the family brand, the status
brand, and the sexy brand. For example, one of the most lasting and successful GM models
is the Corvette, which is considered to be one of the sexiest and flashiest American cars.
Indeed, most people consider Corvette to be its own brand (rather than a Chevrolet model)
because it occupies a distinctly dif- ferent psychological niche (the sexy car niche) than
Chevrolet. By considering the ultimate motives driving consumer preferences, firms can
position their brands to more directly speak to what consumers really want, eve n if those
preferences are latent and not identifiable through traditional, conscious response
methodologies.

Situational influences on social motives

Thus far we have concentrated on evolutionary motives as reflected by individual
differences, whereby it is useful for marketers to consider that people have different motive
profiles. However, it is also worthwhile for marketers to consider how specific
evolutionary motives can be height- ened by specific contexts. For example, a self-
protection motive will become temporarily more influential after a person reads a news
story about a murder; a mate-attraction motive will be heightened after seeing an attractive
opposite-sex individual; a mate-retention motive by remem- bering an approaching
wedding anniversary; a status motive by hearing about a promotion; an affiliation motive
after social rejection; and a kin care motive after seeing a photo of one’s child. The key
implication is that consumers will be more easily persuaded to want products that are
consistent with the motive that is currently most influential. After watching a clip from a
scary film, people are more easily persuaded to want a product that is owned by many other
people and helps them blend into the crowd, rather than a product that is unique and
distinctive (Griskevicius, Goldstein et al. 2009). Conversely, after watching a clip from a
sexy film, people are more easily persuaded to want a product that that is unique and will
help them stand out from the crowd, rather than one that is already owned by many
consumers.
The notion that situational cues can be used to heighten the influence of specific motives
can be used strategically by marketers. Consider advertising during local news
programmes. The first segment is often filled with reports of frightful incidents such as
murders, rapes, abductions, wars, or fires: content that is likely to heighten a self-protection
motive. Yet the products and services that are often advertised during the news, such as
those that improve one’s appearance or luxury cars, often have no relation to self-
protection. Instead, advertising after the first news segment is likely to be more successful if
it focuses on products relevant to self-protection (which, of course, may involve more than
goods explicitly referencing protection, such as goods that highlight maintenance of the
status quo). In contrast to the first news segment, one of the last news seg- ments tends to
be about sports. Sport features reports about competitions that might serve to temporarily
heighten a motive for status; viewers might thus be more easily persuaded to pur- chase
status-related products by adverts immediately following the end of the programme.
Consideration of the situational influences of evolutionary motives suggests that
marketers can be more strategic in how and when they use contexts to heighten specific
motives. For example, a particular motive may be heightened when a person encounters a
particular background on a website (Mandel and Johnson 2002), through the store
environment and atmospherics (Kaltcheva and Weitz 2006), or even via particular scents or
music (Zhu and Meyers-Levy 2005; Bosmans 2006). Consider the influence of a pungent
scent that is likely to temporarily heighten a self- protection (disease avoidance) motive. In
such a situation, people would be more likely to avoid
324 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

products that are strange and unfamiliar, instead desiring things that are safe, clean, and
familiar (Argo et al. 2006). Such cues may even increase people’s desire for domestically
manufactured products, reducing desire for things considered to be foreign. A marketer’s
sensitivity to the influ- ence of the context suggests that firm partnerships might be an
effective means of increasing joint returns. For example, consider a car dealer who is
planning to place a print ad featuring a high- status vehicle. Joining forces with a
company that is interested in advertising executive job advancement training by placing
car and job ads in close proximity to each other may elevate the chance that a status motive
is heightened for the reader, driving them to prefer both that car and that training class.

Conclusion
Evolutionary approaches are only beginning to make inroads into our understanding of
market- ing, advertising, and consumer behaviour. Although an examination of current
mainstream research in marketing would suggest that evolution has little to do with modern
consumer behav- iour, a closer inspection of our ancestral roots can provide much insight
into why we buy. An evolutionary perspective suggests that we interact with our present-
day world using brains that evolved to solve a recurring and limited set of ancestral social
challenges. Solving the challenges of making friends, gaining status, attracting a mate,
keeping a mate, protecting ourselves from danger, and taking care of offspring requires the
application of specific motives that play a role not only in life on the ancestral savannah but
also in modern consumer environments. These deep-seated motives can shape all stages of
the consumer judgement and decision-making proc- ess, and thus represent especially
important tools for firms to leverage to better meet consumer preferences. Several specific
areas of marketing that might be aided by an evolutionary approach include market
segmentation, consumers targeting, brand positioning, and advertising. Although future
research is needed to examine the effectiveness of this approach, an evolutionary perspec-
tive holds much promise for unlocking the fundamental mysteries of consumer behaviour.

References
Aaker, D.A. (1991). Managing brand equity. Free Press Publishing, New York.
Aaker, J., Fournier, S., and Brasel, S.A. (2004). When good brands do bad. Journal of Consumer
Research,
31, 1–16.
Ackerman, J. and Kenrick, D.T. (2008). The costs of benefits: help-refusals highlight key trade-offs of
social life. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12, 2, 118–14.
Ackerman, J., Kenrick, D.T. and Schaller, M. (2007). Is friendship akin to kinship? Evolution and Human
Behavior, 28, 365–74.
Ackerman, J.M., Becker, D.V., Mortensen, C.R., Sasaki, T., Neuberg, S.L., and Kenrick, D.T. (2009a).
A pox on the mind: disjunction of attention and memory in the processing of physical
disfigurement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 478–85.
Ackerman, J.M., Goldstein, N.J., Shapiro, J.R., and Bargh, J.A. (2009b). You wear me out: the
vicarious depletion of self-control. Psychological Science, 20, 326–32.
Altemeyer, B. (1988). Enemies of freedom. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Argo, J.J., Dahl, D.W., and Morales, A.C. (2006). Consumer contamination: how consumers
react to products touched by others. Journal of Marketing, 70, 81–94.
Ariely, D., Loewenstein, G., and Prelec, D. (2006). Tom Sawyer and the construction of value. Journal of
Economic Behavior and Organization, 60, 1–10.
Avnet, T. and Higgins, E.T. (2006). How regulatory fit affects value in consumer choices and opinions.
Journal of Marketing Research, 43, 1–10.
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 325

Bailey, K.G. (1988). Psychological kinship: implications for the helping professions. Psychotherapy: Theory,
Research, Practice, Training, 25, 132–41.
Barrett, H.C. and Kurzban, R. (2006). Modularity in cognition: framing the debate. Psychological
Review,
113, 628–47.
Barrett, L., Dunbar, R.I.M., and Lycett, J.E. (2002). Human evolutionary psychology. Palgrave, London.
Baumeister, R.R. and Leary, M.R. (1995). The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a
fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–529.
Bosmans, A.M.M. (2006). Scents and sensibility: When do (in)congruent ambient scents influence
product evaluations? Journal of Marketing, 70, 32–43.
Bucklin, R.E., Gupta, S., and Han, S. (1995). A brand’s eye view of response segmentation in consumer
brand choice behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 32, 66–74.
Bugental, D.B. (2000). Acquisition of the algorithms of social life: a domain-based approach. Psychological
Bulletin, 126, 187–219.
Buss, D.M. (1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences: evolutionary hypotheses tested
in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12, 1–49.
Buss, D.M. (1995). Psychological sex differences: origins through sexual selection. American
Psychologist,
50, 164–71.
Buss, D.M. (1999). Adaptive individual differences revisited. Journal of Personality, 67, 259–64.
Buss, D.M. and Shackelford, T.K. (1997). From vigilance to violence: mate retention tactics in married
couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 346–61.
Campbell, L. and Ellis, B.J. (2005). Commitment, love, and mate retention. In: D.M. Buss (ed.),
The handbook of evolutionary psychology, pp. 419–42. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
Cialdini, R.B. (2009). Influence: science and practice (5th Edition). Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.
Clark, M.S., Mills, J., and Powell, M.C. (1986). Keeping track of needs in communal and
exchange relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 333–38.
Cottrell, C.A. and Neuberg, S.L. (2005). Different emotional reactions to different groups: a
sociofunctional threat-based approach to ‘prejudice’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88,
770–89.
Cummins, R.A. (1998). The second approximation to an international standard for life satisfaction.
Social Indicators Research, 43, 307–34.
Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. Aldine de Gruyter, New York.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection. John Murray, London.
Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man, and sexual selection in relation to sex. John Murray,
London. Dunbar, R.I.M. (2004). The human story. Faber and Faber, London.
Duncan, L.A., Schaller, M., and Park, J.H. (2009). Perceived vulnerability to disease:
development and validation of a 15-item self-report instrument. Personality and Individual
Differences, 47, 541–6.
Durante, K.M., Griskevicius, V., Hill, S.E., Perilloux, C., and Li, N.P. (2011). Ovulation, female
competition, and product choice: hormonal influences on consumer behavior. Journal of
Consumer Research, 37, 921–34.
Faulkner, J., Schaller, M., Park, J.H., and Duncan, L.A. (2004). Evolved disease avoidance mechanisms and
contemporary xenophobic attitudes. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 7, 333–53.
Fennell, G., Allenby, G.M., Yang, S., and Edwards, Y. (2003). The effectiveness of demographic and
psychographic variables for explaining brand and product category use. Quantitative Marketing and
Economics, 1, 223–44.
Fiske, A.P. (1992). The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a unified theory of
social relations. Psychological Review, 99, 689–723.
Fritz, R. (1997). Wars of succession: the blessings, curses and lessons that family owned firms offer anyone
in business. Merritt Publishing, Santa Monica, CA.
Goldstein, N.J. and Cialdini, R.B. (2007). The spyglass self: a model of vicarious self-perception. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 402–17.
326 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

Griskevicius, V., Cialdini, R.B., and Kenrick, D.T. (2006a). Peacocks, Picasso, and
parental investment: the effects of romantic motives on creativity. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 63–76.
Griskevicius, V., Goldstein, N.J., Mortensen, C.R., Cialdini, R.B., and Kenrick, D.T. (2006b). Going
along versus going alone: when fundamental motives facilitate strategic (non)conformity.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 281–94.
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J.M., Sundie, J.M., Cialdini, R.B., Miller, G.F. and Kenrick, D.T. (2007).
Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption: when romantic motives elicit costly
displays. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 85–102.
Griskevicius, V., Goldstein, N.J., Mortensen, C.R., Sundie, J.M., Cialdini, R.B., and
Kenrick, D.T. (2009a). Fear and loving in Las Vegas: evolution, emotion, and persuasion.
Journal of Marketing Research, 46, 385–95.
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J.M., Gangestad, S.W., Perea, E.F., Shapiro, J.R., and Kenrick, D.T. (2009b).
Aggress to impress: hostility as an evolved context-dependent strategy. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 96, 980–94.
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J.M., and Van den Bergh, B. (2010). Going green to be seen: status,
reputation, and conspicuous conservation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 392–404.
Gutierres, S.E., Kenrick, D.T., and Partch, J.J. (1999). Beauty, dominance, and the mating game:
contrast effects in self-assessment reflect gender differences in mate selection. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1126–34.
Hamilton, W.D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behavior: I and II. Journal of Theoretical
Biology,
7, 1–52.
Hardy, C.L. and Van Vugt, M. (2006). Nice guys finish first: the competitive altruism hypothesis.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1402–13.
Haselton, M.G. and Nettle, D. (2006). The paranoid optimist: an integrative evolutionary
model of cognitive biases. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 47–66.
Henrich, J. and Gil-White F.J. (2001). The evolution of prestige: freely conferred status as a
mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22,
165–96.
Hotelling, H. (1929). Stability in competition. The Economic Journal, 39, 41–57.
Hsee, C.K., Yang, Y., Li, N., and Shen, L. (2009). Wealth, warmth and wellbeing: whether
happiness is relative or absolute depends on whether it is about money, acquisition, or
consumption. Journal of Marketing Research, 46, 396–409.
Jackson, P.L., Brunet, E., Meltzoff, A.N., and Decety, J. (2006). Empathy examined through the
neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain.
Neuropsychologia, 44, 752–61.
Jost, J.T. and Hunyady, O. (2005). Antecedents and consequences of system-justifying ideologies. Current
Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 260–5.
Kaltcheva, V. and Weitz, B. (2006). When should a retailer create an exciting store environment? Journal
of Marketing, 70, 107–18.
Kenrick, D.T. and Shiota, M.N. (2008). Approach and avoidance motivation(s): an
evolutionary perspective. In A.J. Elliot (ed.), Handbook of approach and avoidance
motivation, pp. 271–85. Psychology Press, New York.
Kenrick, D.T., Li, N.L., and Butner, J. (2003). Dynamical evolutionary psychology: individual
decision rules and emergent social norms. Psychological Review, 110, 3–28.
Kenrick, D.T., Griskevicius, V., Neuberg, S.L., and Schaller, M. (2010a). Renovating the pyramid
of needs: contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations. Perspectives on Psychological
Science, 5, 292–314.
Kenrick, D.T., Nieuweboer, S., and Buunk, A.P. (2010b). Universal mechanisms and cultural diversity:
replacing the blank slate with a coloring book. In: M. Schaller, A. Norenzayan, S. Heine, T.
Yamagishi,
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 327

and T. Kameda (eds), Evolution, culture, and the human mind, pp. 257–71. Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Kotler, P. (1991). Marketing management: analysis, planning, implementation and control. Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Kotler, P. (1999). Kotler on marketing. Free Press Publishing, New York.
Kugihara, N. (2005). Effects of physical threat and collective identity on prosocial behaviors in an
emergency. In: J.P. Morgan (ed.), Psychology of aggression, pp. 45–67. Nova Science, Hauppauge,
NY.
Leo, N.B. (1964). Creative strategy for international advertising. In: S.W. Dunn (ed.),
International handbook of advertising, pp. 181–82. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Lerner, J.S. and Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
81, 146–59.
Li, N.P. and Kenrick, D.T. (2006). Sex similarities and differences in preferences for short -term
mates: what, whether, and why. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 468–89.
Li, N.P., Bailey, J.M., Kenrick, D.T., and Linsenmeier, J.A. (2002). The necessities and luxuries of mate
preferences: testing the trade-offs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 947–55.
Li, Y.J., Kenrick, D.T., Griskevicius, V., and Neuberg, S.L. (2010). ‘The evolutionary roots of decision
biases: erasing and exacerbating loss aversion.’ Paper presented at the Human Behavior and
Evolution Society meeting, Eugene, OR.
Lydon, J.E., Jamieson, D.W., and Holmes, J.G. (1997). The meaning of social interactions in the
transition from acquaintanceship to friendship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 536–
48.
Mandel, N. and Johnson, E.J. (2002). When web pages influence choice: effects of visual primes on
experts and novices. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 235–45.
Maner, J.K., Gailliot, M.T., Rouby, D.A., and Miller, S.L. (2007a). Can’t take my eyes off you: attentional
adhesion to mates and rivals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 389–401.
Maner, J.K., DeWall, C.N., Baumeister, R.F., and Schaller, M. (2007c). Does social exclusion
motivate interpersonal reconnection? Resolving the ‘Porcupine Problem’. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 92, 42–55.
Maner, J.K., Gailliot, M.T., Butz, D., and Peruche, B.M. (2007b). Power, risk, and the status quo:
does power promote riskier or more conservative decision-making? Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 33, 451–62.
Maner, J.K., Miller, S.L., Rouby, D.A., and Gailliot, M.T. (2009). Intrasexual vigilance: the implicit
cognition of romantic rivalry. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 74–87.
Maner, J.K. and Mead, N. (2010). The essential tension between leadership and power: when leaders
sacrifice group goals for the sake of self-interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
99, 482–97.
Marmot, M. (2004). Status syndrome: how your social standing directly affects your health and life expectancy.
Bloomsbury, London.
Mead, N.L., Baumeister, R.F., Stillman, T.F., Rawn, C.D., and Vohs, K.D. (2011). Social
exclusion causes people to spend and consume in the service of affiliation. Journal of
Consumer Research, 37, 902–19.
McClelland, D.C. (1975). Power: the inner experience. Irvington, New York.
McConaughy, D.L., Matthews, C.H., and Fialko, A.S. (2001). Founding family controlled
firms: performance, risk and value. Journal of Small Business Management, 39, 31–49.
Miller, A.G., Collins, B.E., and Brief, D.E. (1995). Perspectives on obedience to authority: the legacy of
the Milgram experiments. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 1–19.
Miller, G.F. (2009). Spent: sex, evolution, and consumer behavior. Penguin/Putnam, New York.
Mortensen, C.R., Becker, D.V., Ackerman, J.M., Neuberg, S.L., and Kenrick, D.T. (2010). Infection
breeds reticence: the effects of disease salience on self-perceptions of personality and behavioral
avoidance tendencies. Psychological Science, 21, 440–7.
328 SECTION 5: MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION

Mulpuru, S. (2007). Which personalization tools work for e-commerce—and why. Forrester Research,
Cambridge, CA.
Mulvenna, M.D., Anand, S.S., and Buchner, A.G. (2000). Personalization on the Net using Web
mining: introduction. Communications of the ACM, 43, 122–5.
Nesse, R.M. (2005). Natural selection and the regulation of defenses: A signal detection analysis
of the smoke detector principle. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26, 88–105.
Nisbett, R. and Wilson, T. (1977). Telling more than we can know: verbal reports on mental processes.
Psychological Review, 84, 231–59.
Nolan, J.P., Schultz, P.W., Cialdini, R.B., Goldstein, N.J., and Griskevicius, V. (2008). Normative
social influence is underdetected. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 913–23.
Oyserman, D., Coon, H., and Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and
collectivism: evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychological
Bulletin, 128, 3–73.
Perez-Gonzalez, F. (2006). Inherited control and firm performance. American Economic Review,
96, 1559–88.
Pillsworth, E.G. and Haselton, M.G. (2006). Women’s sexual strategies: the evolution of long-term
bonds and extra-pair sex. Annual Review of Sex Research, 17, 59–100.
Pinker, S. (2002). The blank slate: the modern denial of human nature. Viking-Penguin, New York.
Rossi, P.E., McCulloch, R.E., and Allenby, G.M. (1996). The value of purchase history data in target
marketing. Marketing Science, 15, 321–40.
Rucker, D.D. and Galinsky, A.D. (2008). Desire to acquire: powerlessness and compensatory
consumption.
Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 257–67.
Saad, G. (2007). The evolutionary bases of consumption. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Publishers, Mahwah, NJ.
Saad, G. and Gill, T. (2003). An evolutionary psychology perspective on gift giving among young
adults.
Psychology and Marketing, 20, 765–84.
Shapiro, J.R., Ackerman, J.M., Neuberg, S.L., Maner, J.K., Becker, D.V., and Kenrick, D.T. (2009).
Following in the wake of anger: when not discriminating is discriminating. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 35, 1356–67.
Simpson, J.A. and Gangestad, S.W. (1991). Individual differences in sociosexuality: evidence for
convergent and discriminant validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 870–83.
Smith, M.S., Kish, B.J., and Crawford, C.B. (1987). Inheritance of wealth as human kin investment.
Ethology and Sociobiology, 8, 171–82.
Smith, W.R. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing
strategies.
The Journal of Marketing, 21, 3–8.
Sundie, J.M., Kenrick D.T., Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J.T., Vohs, K.D., and Beal, D.J. (2011).
Peacocks, Porsches, and Thorstein Veblen: conspicuous consumption as a sexual signaling
system. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 664–80.
Tesser, A. (1988). Toward a self-evaluation maintenance model of social behavior.
In: LL. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21), pp. 181–228.
Academic Press, San Diego, CA.
Tinbergen, N. (1963). On the aims and methods of ethology. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20, 410–33.
Tooby, J. and Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In: J. Barkow, L. Cosmides,
and J. Tooby (eds), The adapted mind: evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, pp. 19–136.
Oxford University Press, New York.
Tybur, J.M., Lieberman, D., and Griskevicius, V. (2009). Microbes, mating, and morality:
individual differences in three functional domains of disgust. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 97, 103–22.
Underhill, P. (2000). Why we buy: the science of shopping. Simon and Schuster, New York.
 WHY WE BUY: EVOLUTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR 329

Wedel, M. and Kamakura, W.A. (2000). Market segmentation: conceptual and methodological foundations.
Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA.
Wilcox, K., Kim, H., and Sen, S. (2009). Why do consumers buy counterfeit luxury brands? Journal of
Marketing Research, 46, 247–59.
Wilson, M. and Daly, M. (2004). Do pretty women inspire men to discount the future? Proceedings of the
Royal Society B, 271, 177–9.
Yankelovich, D. and Meer, D. (2006). Rediscovering market segmentation. Harvard Business Review,
84, 122–31.
Zhu, R. and Meyers-Levy, J. (2005). Distinguishing between the meanings of music: when
background music affects product perceptions. Journal of Marketing Research, 43, 333–45.