Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life (30 page)

Veblen discussed conspicuous consumption in
The Theory of the Leisure Class
(1899). 130
Peacocks and Sexual Selection:
Darwin originally introduced the concept of sexual selection in
The Origin of Species
(1859). The importance of a connection
between parental investment and sexual selection is developed in Trivers, 1972. The quote from the Punjab wildlife official comes from Tandon, 2004.

132
Dominance and Sexual Attraction in Humans:
The research described in this section is reported in Sadalla, Kenrick, & Vershure, 1987. See Townsend & Levy, 1990a, 1990b, for the research on clothing status and attractiveness. Cross-cultural research demonstrating links between status and a man's success in attracting mates can be found in Buss, 1989; J. Hill, 1984; and Turke & Betzig, 1985.

134
Flashing the Cash:
The research described in this section is reported in Sundie et al., in press, and Griskevicius et al., 2007.

136
Creative Genius:
Pinker's arguments about creative abilities as by-products are in
How the Mind Works
(1997). For arguments about creativity and sexual selection, see G. F. Miller's
The Mating Mind
(2000). Our experiments examining the links between mating motives and displays of creativity are reported in Griskevicius, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006. For a historical analysis of women who inspired artists, see Prose, 2002.

138
He's a Rebel:
The classic line-judging conformity experiments are reported in Asch, 1955. Our experiments on conformity and mating motivation are reported in Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006.

142
What About Female Displays?:
The findings on women's creativity displays are reported in Griskevicius, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006. Results demonstrating that romantic motives increase women's displays of benevolence are reported in Griskevicius, Tybur et al., 2007.

143
Peacocks, Porsches, and the Meaning of Life:
The research showing that flashy displays are associated with unrestricted sexuality is reported in Sundie et al., in press. The findings on income and sexual attractiveness are reported in Kenrick, Sundie, Nicastle, & Stone, 2001.

145
I am describing a scene from a movie:
The Robert De Niro movie filmed on the corner where I grew up was
A Bronx Tale
, although the corner was actually in Queens.

148
The Psychology of Belief and Disbelief:
The different evolutionary analyses of religion I discuss can be found in Boyer, 2003; Atran & Norenzayan, 2004; Kirkpatrick, 2005; D. S. Wilson, 2002; Johnson & Bering, 2006; and Sharif, Norenzayan, & Henrich, 2010.

150
Reproductive Religiosity:
The research described in this section is reported in Weeden, Cohen, & Kenrick, 2008. The research on ovulation and attraction to handsome men is reported in Haselton & Gangestad, 2006; Penton-Voak et al., 1999; Little, Jones, & DeBruine, 2008; and Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999.

154
How Flexible Is the Link Between Religiosity and Reproduction?:
The research discussed in this section is reported in Y. J. Li, Cohen, Weeden, & Kenrick,
2010. See Masters & Johnson, 1970, for their discussion of the hypothesized link between sexual inhibition and religious training.

161
Economic Selfishness, Psychological Irrationality, and Deep Rationality:
For an engaging discussion of research on behavioral economics, see Ariely, 2009. For the distinction between “Econs” and “Humans,” see Thaler & Sunstein, 2008. For a discussion of loss aversion, see Kahneman & Tversky, 1991. For a classic paper introducing this concept, see Kahneman & Tversky, 1979.

163
Econs, Humans, and Morons:
For a discussion of how “simple heuristics make us smart,” see Todd & Gigerenzer, 2007, or the edited volume by Gigerenzer & Selten (2001). For our discussion of the notion of deep rationality, see Kenrick et al., 2009.

164
How to Make the Prisoner's Dilemma Disappear:
Our discussion of the prisoner's dilemma can be found in Kenrick & Sundie, 2007, and it is developed more broadly in Kenrick, Sundie, & Kurzban, 2008. Some of the ideas were presented in Kenrick, Sanabria, Sundie, & Killeen, 2010.

166
Life as a Bank Account:
For discussion of life history theory, see Kaplan & Gangestad, 2005; Kenrick & Luce, 2000; or Stearns, Allal, & Mace, 2008.

168
Shifting Priorities:
See Sundie & Kenrick, 2006; Kenrick, Sundie, & Kurzban, 2008; or Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, and Schaller, 2010, for a discussion of these issues. For the research exploring sex differences in what counts as a luxury versus a necessity in a mate, see N. P. Li & Kenrick, 2006, or N. P. Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002.

170
Loss Aversion by Morons Versus Loss Aversion by Evols:
The statement “There has been so much research on loss aversion . . .” comes from Vohs & Luce, 2010, p. 736. The research on loss aversion was discussed in Y. J. Li & Kenrick, 2010. Dan Ariely's 2009 book
Predictably Irrational
is a good introduction to his research and the modern behavioral economic perspective.

177
The Wrong Crowd:
For some examples of Latané's work applying dynamical ideas to social psychology, see Latané, 1996; Latané & L'Herrou, 1996; and Latané & Nowak, 1994. I am less familiar with Van Orden's published work on this, and much of it flies well over my head, but see Van Orden, 2002, or Van Orden, Holden, & Turvey, 2003.

180
Chaotic Attractors and the Revenge of the Nerds:
There are a number of very accessible general treatments of dynamical models of behavior (e.g., Holland, 1998; Lewin, 1992; Waldrop, 1992). For other applications to social psychology, see Nowak, Vallacher, Tesser, & Borkowski, 2000, and Nowak & Vallacher, 1998. The other books to which I refer in this section are Hölldoebler & Wilson, 2008; Carroll, 2005; and Capra, 1997.

183
Self-Organization: Order out of Randomness:
Our research on the emergence of social norms from individual decision rules is presented in Kenrick, Li, & Butner, 2003.

186
Where Do the Decision Biases Come From?:
For discussions of the prevalence of human conformity mechanisms, see Henrich & Boyd, 1998, and Richerson & Boyd, 1998. See Chartrand & Bargh, 1999, for the research on nonverbal mimicry.

188
Emergent Social Geometries:
For further discussion of emergent social geometries, see Kenrick et al., 2002. See Hölldoebler & Wilson, 1994, for a discussion of ants' intercolonial battles.

192
It's Emergence and Self-Organization from the Bottom to the Top:
For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see Kenrick et al., 2002.

197
The Meaning of Life I:
Most of the material in this section was discussed in earlier chapters. See also Kenrick, in press, and Kenrick et al., 2002.

201
The Meaning of Life II:
The book honoring my mentor Bob Cialdini is Kenrick, Goldstein, & Braver, in press.

203
Ask Not What You Can Do for Yourself:
The book I mention here is Lyubomirsky, 2007. Two other excellent, but very different, books on the psychology of happiness are Gilbert, 2007, and Haidt, 2006. The research on money and happiness is Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008. Another study in this vein suggests that people who help others may live longer (S. L. Brown, Nesse, Vinokur, & Smith, 2003).

204
This Is Dedicated to the Ones I Love:
Jack Eurich, Noah Goldstein, Mark Schaller, Bob Cialdini, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Rich Keefe, David Funder, Jason Weeden, Adam Cohen, and Vlad Griskevicius also read all or part of the book and fed me not only helpful servings of feedback but also hefty portions of encouragement. The book might not have gotten off the ground if not for Dan Ariely's kind introduction to his agent Jim Levine, who provided not only skillful representation but also plenty of sage advice. T. J. Kelleher at Basic Books helped me navigate to the destination airport, doing an amazingly careful and thoughtful job editing the whole text.