Why Gossip and Fashion really are Matters of Life and Death.

[adriaanb]

You have to try to separate the myriad of signals something as simple as clothing can carry. Wealth, availability, trendiness, group affiliation, authority, religion, etc. So signals can combine. But looking trendy is a signal that comes across to many other women for sure.

Go to your news stand and look at the information people are willing to pay for. Fashion and gossip dominate the female section, not the male section. That is not to say all women are interested in it or that they are not interested in other things or that men are not interested in fashion etc. But for a gatherer, showing that you know about the latest is not a waste of time at all. You didn't evolve to waste time, they are 'loves' that help feed you.

And don't fall into the trap of psychology. They have been focussing on trying to explain the abnormal. Without having a clue what it is that makes you normal. It's the wrong perspective. Much like trying to explain the movements of the planets in the sky from the viewpoint of the earth. It is possible and it was done, but it is way to complicated. Once you change to the correct model things become simple, like Galileo showed in astronomy.

To explain behaviours in the present world, saying that someone loves doing it or hates doing it is a good enough explanation. But then you have to go back to the environment where we evolved to understand why that love or hate could evolve. A girl putting on the latest pants may feel great looking at herself in the mirror. And maybe she loves chatting to a girlfriend on the phone for hours about everything and everyone. You know why that love could evolve.

You can assume that women hunted and men gathered too. So they will share plenty of the motivations typical to a hunter or a gatherer (see my post on sports and career). But in general, gathering fits women better, hunting fits men better.

10.000 years is very little for evolution to make big changes in an organisms plan. The enormous progress you see around you is due to people combining brain power ever more efficiently. 'Parallel processing through a language interface', you now benefit from the thoughts of people before and around you. But that doesn't mean the hardware of the individual brain changed. We use a big educated brain to follow our ancient motivations, and maybe sometimes that goes wrong, see my other post.

[Boerseun]

What seperates us from the cave dwellers of thousands of years ago, is nothing biological - a modern-day baby born into a cave-dweller environment will assume it as the natural order of things, and will fit perfectly into it, not knowing any better. Biologically speaking, we're one and the same.

What seperates us from our cave-dwelling ancestors is simply "culture". Our cultures differ, and what you refer to as "parallel processing" is merely a facet thereof.

But in reaching your ultimate point that fashion has to do with the private knowledge of food resources is big leap. Humans of the ancient cave-dwelling variety, do NOT forage alone. Modern-day examples, including the bushmen of the Kalahari, testifies to that fact. It's simply dangerous to wander off alone in an environment where large predators or small, poisonous insects, can mean your end. Primitive societies where the womenfolk have a tendency to wander off by themselves in search of food, and when that food is found to keep the knowledge thereof a secret, will not flourish compared to other societies where a more co-operative approach is taken to gathering resources.

Nope - in the final analysis, the rabid following of fashion trends is a subconscious expression that has everything to do with sex and successful copulation with desirable males, and very little to do with berries and fruits.

[adriaanb]

Maybe you wouldn't forage on your own all the time, but you sure don't walk with everyone either. And I think you are exaggerating the danger of wandering through an area you know very well. If there are lions about, who you gonna call? You get your bravest friends to throw stones at them to get rid of them.

Yes, clothes can make you look good to the other sex and that is very important. But looking up to date matters too. Gossip and a large part of fashion is about signalling that between women. Men just don't care or know about the latest trend in handbags or shoes, women do (stereotyping alert!). Those are multibillion dollar industries you can't assume are just a waste of effort or some 'subconcious expression' that defies logic.

We are talking about the survival of genes here, small consistent differences in individual survival rates are enough. Looking up to date helped the gatherer.

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

...Primitive societies where the womenfolk have a tendency to wander off by themselves... will not flourish...

I agree, I would even say that wandering off alone was such a bad idea, that it is one of the most powerful reasons why we evolved into social animals who love to gossip in the first place.

[adriaanb]

There are still plenty of primitive peoples around where the women walk in small groups for many hours through dangerous territory to get water or food. Yes, it may be dangerous, but feeding your children is also very important.

What would be optimal. Walking around with all women wouldn't be very smart. You will find much less. Walking alone all the time may be dangerous. The optimum will be somewhere in between.

Which means many women will have to hear about a limited find from others. Which means a good social network matters. And signalling that you have a good social network matters because that is what gets others to let you in on their information.

[modest]

You might as well say that men don't gossip because they have to be quiet when on the hunt. Or, that women developed the trait in order to teach young children how to communicate. Fact is, there's no evidence to any of this.

~modest

[Overdog]

Certainly a good social network matters, and having a good social network is important, but the following study does not support that these characteristics evolved as a consequence of foraging and sharing...

Abstract
Foragers who do not practice food storage might adapt to fluctuating food supplies by sharing surplus resources in times of plenty with the expectation of receiving in times of shortfall. In this paper, we derive a number of predictions from this perspective, which we term the risk reduction reciprocity (RRR) model, and test these with ethnographic data on foraging (fishing, shellfish collecting, and turtle hunting) among the Meriam (Torres Strait, Australia). While the size of a harvest strongly predicts that a portion will be shared beyond the household of the acquirer, the effects of key measures of foraging risk (e.g., failure rate) are comparatively weak: Harvests from high-risk hunt types are usually shared more often than those from low-risk hunt types in the same macropatch, but increases in risk overall do not accurately predict increases in the probability of sharing. In addition, free-riders (those who take shares but do not reciprocate) are not discriminated against, those who share more often and more generously do not predictably receive more, and most sharing relationships between households (over 80%) involve one-way flows.

Elsevier

This seems to suggest that food sharing behaviors are more a consequence of social evolution, ie; altruistic behavior which improves survivability of the group.

[Overdog]

It seems to me that nothing beyond the fact that we evolved as social animals with the capacity to talk is needed to explain gossip. Why wouldn't the first thing we would talk about be each other?

[HydrogenBond]

Women are more motivated by security and men more motivated by desire. This is connected to human sexuality. When the male generates sperm each day or so, the instinct is desire for release. The female cycle is connected to the extrapolation associated with pregnancy and children, which require security since the entire process create a sense of vulnerability due to the extra effort required.

Based on that women will do what makes them feel most secure. Culture defines what that is, such as fashion. Women, in turn, maximize their need for security through perfection. So the right shoes and handbag is part of what makes them look perfect and therefore feel more secure based on this cultural induction. If gardens were more important that fashions then women would do that instead and create perfect like gardens with details.

Desire works differently. Masculine desire does not discriminate nor is it looking for security. Security is more in the mind than based on instinct. A male can be married but he will turn his head instinctively to a pretty girl, even of his wife may nag. The impulse is more fuzzy, he may look at the package and not really see the little details that most women are very aware off. She is looking for security in perfection.

Gossip and woman is part of the perfection process. The good gossip is an exchange of ideas to learn better ways to be more perfect. Roxanne's dresses up sexy and has improved her sex life with her husband. This allows other women to learn how to have a more perfect marriage. The bad gossip is a way to lower the floor on another, to create the illusion of rising higher. For example, Sarah's man is not paying attention. This is not the perfect relationship. But if Betty's husband is cheating, Sarah's relationship looks much better. Compared to Betty, her life is closer to perfection. There is a certain joy created by this.

The other angle is gossip bragging. My child is a star pupil. This is something to be proud of and allows one to rise higher in perfection. But it can also be used to lower the floor on another, if it is done in a two faced way. It can be expressed in a way to knock the other person down a notch in terms of an indirect comparison. There is sometimes sort of a competition in terms of climbing the ladder of perfection. You can climb an also step on fingers as you climb.

[adriaanb]

These anthropological type of explanations where everybody shares with everybody can mean only one thing. That anthropologists are nicer people than average, assuming other people to be nice too.

People don't share with people who are not already friends or relatives without something in return in today's world. That doesn't mean they will let you starve, but you don't get a free lunch now and you didn't then. Or at least you shouldn't assume that just to make an argument work. You should assume they think much like we think because we share 100.00% dna.

Don't forget there is food, and then there is food. You can be getting the laboriously harvested vegetables that don't taste well and aren't very nutritious. Or you can be eating the nice ripe fruits you got because your friend got it from a friend who got it from a friend.. etc. Your kids will grow better because they are fed better. Without a supermarket, food is your prime worry throughout your life.

Females feeling insecure, perfecting their life, male fuzzy impulses, you would never accept an explanation like that when you were talking about dolphins or dogs or chimps. You shouldn't accept it with humans, and you don't need to.

Gathering is information intensive. You need to be told by your friends where you can get your food or you need to get it from your friends. So as a female you need to be in with the 'popular' females. That is what helps feed your children. The mating game is a pretty separate worry.