Consumption

Life History Strategy and Consumption

Theories from evolutionary biology have been extended to human psychology in the form of life history strategy (LHS), which suggests that people shift their allocation of energy and resources throughout the lifespan and across contexts to adaptively maximize reproductive success. Generally, LHS divides people’s investments into somatic and reproductive effort. Somatic effort represents slow processes that are important in early life stages, such as growing, maintaining health and fitness, repairing injuries, and enhancing life skills for long-term investments. Reproductive efforts are aimed at activities such as mating and having and supporting children, which increase in importance during adolescence and early adulthood. People are assumed to “trade off” from emphasizing somatic effort early and late in life and reproductive effort in adolescence and young adulthood.

When applying LHS to human consumption, it is assumed that teenagers and young adults take more risks and spend significant resources on material goods to impress peers and, therefore, increase mating success. Indeed, significant evidence from psychology and marketing shows that people’s spending on goods is not just utilitarian—providing necessary items that solve key logistical problems such as food and shelter—but also maximizes processes that are social, relational, and tied to identity as people signal status and identity through goods to themselves and others. According to LHS, people should also shift consumption patterns after having and rearing children toward items that promote the success of offspring, such as expensive educational and high-status activities.

Emotions Influence Consumption

Research at the nexus of ethology and psychology finds that emotions also influence consumption. People prefer utilitarian items (e.g., toilet paper, canned food) when they feel anxious or uncertain, which is an adaptive response that humans share with other species, such as food-storing rodents and birds. When people are socially rejected, they also prefer goods that signal group membership to others, such as school or team wear. When people are eager to impress peers and potential mates, which is likely important during the reproductive effort phase of LHS, they seek goods with status-signaling capacity, such as luxury brand items that others recognize as expensive or exclusive.

Even chronic affect experienced by people with mental health disorders influences the types and quantities of goods people prefer. For example, anxiety with depression appears to potentiate “hoarding” goods, especially seemingly worthless [Page 448]scrap items that most people do not want but also items that most people like but in smaller quantities.

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