SOCIAL MARKETING AND THE DEEP RATIONALITY OF DARK CONSUMPTION
Eveline Vincke – PhD Overview
Promotor: Prof. Dr. Patrick Vyncke
Introduction
Social marketing campaigns
• Often attempt to educate people on the premise that people engage in unhealthy behavior because of a lack of information or awareness of
the negative consequences.
• Based on classic theories, such as The Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), The Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1974) etc.
Despite of all the health promotion campaigns targeted at young people, high levels of smoking, excessive sun tanning, binge drinking, reckless
driving and other unhealthy behaviors are being persisted. Even when these youngsters are well aware of the consequences.
Since it appears that the persistence of these behaviors is not due to incomplete information, we propose that a full understanding of the
youngsters' ‘dark’ behavioral patterns is necessary to improve social marketing campaigns. Therefore, this PhD attempts to answer the question
why young people willingly compromise their health by engaging in risky behaviors, despite being informed about the detrimental effects.
Theory
In a search for ultimate explanations, it became clear that many of the - at first sight ‘irrational’ behaviors, have a rationality at a deeper, evolutionary level (Kenrick et al.,
2009).
To explain the deep rationality of youngsters’ dark consumption behavior, we work with
an integrated theoretical framework, combining
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Life History Theory
• Eco semiotics
• Costly Signaling Theory
• Signaling Theory
• Supernormal Stimuli Theory
Some Key insights:
 The human brain can be seen as an ‘Affordance Management System’, paying the
most attention to fitness cues indicating opportunities or threats that ‘afford’ you to
increase your reproduction and survival successes (Gibson, 1979; Neuberg et al., 2009).
 Next to cue perception, we also create cues to signal information about ourselves to
others In addition to a functional and hedonic dimension, much of the human
(consumption) behavior also has a symbolic dimension (Miller, 2009).
 Women are generally more selective in choosing a partner, making men
compete for access to mates through conspicuous traits and behavior
(Trivers, 1985) Especially young men, experiencing the highest level of
competition, tend to take al lot of risks in their search for status (young male
syndrome, Wilson & Daly, 1985).
 In the case of female competition, women also engage in conspicuous
behavior en traits to signal qualities (Miller, 2009).
 This conspicuous signaling behavior is in line with the evolved mating and
social preferences. This is why for most risk taking (physical risk, financial
risk,…), men are more risk seeking than women. Only in the case of
appearance enhancement, women are more willing to take risks (Saad, 2006).
 To ensure reliable signaling, individuals display behaviors that are costly. The
cost serves as a quality guarantee (Zahavi & Zahavi, 1979). We believe this
Costly Signaling perspective also applies to many of the unhealthy
consumption behaviors addressed in social marketing campaigns (smoking,
binge drinking, reckless driving, etc.).
Research
Current Research
See Overview
Is dark consumption Costly Signaling
behavior?
Which factors trigger unhealthy
signaling behavior?
4 research questions
What does this dark consumption
behavior signal to others?
How can these insights be used to
improve social marketing?
Is dark consumption Costly Signaling Behavior?
Future Research
Which factors trigger unhealthy
signaling behavior?
Impression Management High School Survey
Personality Profile Experiment
Life History Theory Survey
Goal: exploratory research
• Which costly behavior is used for impression
management, popularity and attractiveness?
• Is there a difference between boys and girls?
Method:
• Survey, 6 years of high school
• Ratings of behavior on 7-point scales
Goal: Identify social benefits
• Does costly consumption increase attractiveness and status?
• Is costly consumption linked to a short term strategy?
Method:
• Between subjects experiment, university students
• Written personality profiles (3 versions)
• Ratings on attractiveness, status, perceived strategy
Goal: Identify relevant LH variables for dark behavior
• Does sexual strategy and life history strategy influence
costly behavior? Are there other variables?
Method:
• Survey, one part behavioral questions, one part Life
History questions
Eyetracking Experiment
Photo Experiment
Scenario Experiment
Goal: Identify behavioral benefits, confirm theoretical
framework
• Do fitness cues draw attention?
• Does costly consumption behavior draw attention?
• Do costly consumption stimuli draw attention?
Method:
• Between subjects experiment
• 2 versions (costly vs neutral), Slides with 2 to 4
pictures
Goal: Identify boundaries of costly consumption behavior
• Do benefits of costly consumption behavior depend on the
cost/ honesty of the signal/strategic public display?
Method:
• Between subjects experiment
• 3 versions of each picture, manipulating cost, honesty or
surrounding.
• Ratings on several social benefits
Goal: Identify relevant contexts for dark consumption.
• Which situation/motivation stimulates costly behavior?
• Which social disadvantage stimulates young people to
reduce costly behavior?
Method:
• Mixed subjects design
• 1: Behavioral intentions following 7 scenarios
• 2: Reading a newspaper article focusing on a social
disadvantage) followed by the same scenarios
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predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual
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Kenrick, D.T., Griskevicius, V., Sundie, J.M., Li, N.P., Li, Y.J., &
Neuberg, S.L. (2009). Deep rationality: The evolutionary
economics of decision-making. Social Cognition, 27, 764–778.
Miller, G. F. (2009). Spent: Sex, evolution and consumer
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Neuberg, S.L., Kenrick, D.T., & Schaller, M. (2010). Evolutionary
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