In a new paper with the intriguing title “Peacocks, Porsches, and Thorstein Veblen,” researchers asked women to rate whether they would be more interested in a short-term relationship with a man who had recently bought a Porsche Boxster or a man with all the same characteristics (same salary, same job, same hobbies) but who had recently purchased a Honda Civic.
Women went with the Porsche guy. But when asked about long-term relationships, they showed no preference for the Porsche guy over the Honda guy (just to be clear: they didn’t prefer the Honda guy as a long-term mate. Car choice appeared to make no difference).
Here’s what this has to do with peacocks:
If peahens did not find the peacock’s tail attractive, then the tail would not and could not have been selected for as a mating display–those peacocks who invested the somatic energy into growing and manipulating the tail would have paid high costs for the tail without gleaning reproductive benefits. Similarly, if women did not find men who display flashy and expensive goods to be more attractive as short-term mates, conspicuous consumption would be ineffective as a sexual signal. Those men who frittered away their resources on conspicuous display would have wasted resources that could have gone to necessities with no offsetting reproductive advantage.
I would quibble with the idea that purchasing a Porsche Boxster is a waste of resources unless it serves to attract short-term romantic partners. Because, come on, that Porsche Boxter is going to be way more fun to drive than a Honda Civic, regardless of how many heads it turns.
Also, maybe the researchers should have asked whether men who drive, say, a Mini Cooper would be attractive potential dates. It’s a sporty car like the Boxster but closer in price to the Civic. That’s the guy you want to marry, right?
(The paper — which you can read in its entirety here — was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The authors are Vladas Griskevicius, Andrew W. Delton, Theresa E. Robertson, and Joshua M. Tybur.)
16 Responses to Date a Porsche, Marry a Honda?
billvenne - November 8, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Evidentially the guy driving vehicle made by a US car company doesn’t get a date.
11272784 - November 8, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Another case in which research is irrelevant to real life. If you drive a nice car and get the ladies, who cares why?
greensubmarine - November 8, 2010 at 4:27 pm
This just in: everything in society can be reduced to facile selection arguments. You heard it here first.
22251262 - November 8, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Many men, such as myself, bought a sports car with a zero-order correlation coefficient as to how that car impresses a woman. We like the looks of the car and what it can do. My woman doesn’t have a darn thing to do with my sports car!
jackistevens - November 8, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Here’s a hint about impressing women – don’t use the terms “my woman” and “my sports car” in the same sentence.
cwinton - November 8, 2010 at 5:57 pm
This question ranks in there with what kind of car would Jesus drive?
cunningham2 - November 8, 2010 at 7:54 pm
@greensubmarine I’m so with you, but I think we are losing the battle to defeat the armies of those who Explain Everything by s*xual selection.
Whenever I see yet another facile selection argument a vision of nerdy young men picking their zits and giggling over ‘mating preferences’ rises before me.
Grown ups probably realise there’s more to human life than getting your rocks off.
sacroiliac - November 8, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Tom, how old are you?
oh_richard - November 9, 2010 at 7:42 am
And what kind of car is best if the man isn’t even interested in women?
22261448 - November 9, 2010 at 7:48 am
Can’t sports cars (and, in my case, classic muscle cars) be cool on their own?
pgrudin - November 9, 2010 at 11:19 am
We can argue all we want about human motivation and response, but what’s out of joint here is the logic. The “rasearchers” give a cogent argument about peacocks and how they get their tail. Then comes the rub: “Similarly, if women did not find men who display flashy and expensive goods . . .”
“Similarly?” Well that would be scanned. How similar? Are the Peacockettes attracted to color? Size? Do they realize anything at all about Darwinian “resources” and how much of these each male has spent? Does the amount he has spent predict, in the hen’s bird-brains what he gets to “spend”?
Women, and this may come as headline news to some, think. If they are meretricious, then the kind of car a man drives is an indication of how much money he has. If they are decent and smart and honest, they don’t molt a feather over what kind of car the guy has. My wife, who is decent, honest, and brilliant, cannot tell one car from another and has no interest in doing so. I have a BMW (and I don’t even look at other women). If I came home tomorrow with Kia of the same color and took her for a ride in it,she might notice that I had had the carpets cleaned.
Alas, “similarly” represents the kind of logic or science that is soft in the head.
11126724 - November 9, 2010 at 12:02 pm
And to think that Thorstein Veblen wasn’t interested at all in sex or gender, but would have considered a trophy wife as just another form of conspicuous consumption.
Amazing CHE can get so many comments from such a silly article.
wilkenslibrary - November 9, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Is this what passes for peer reviewed research these days?
22061638 - November 22, 2010 at 10:18 am
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Well said. I, and my wife, would agree with your sentiments. I don’t see the correlation for reasons men would purchase a sports car over an inexpensive car and attracting women. I’ve loved performance cars all my life – that even though I’ve suffered through all the “mid-life crisis” jokes.
I’m over sixty, married, not looking for women – but exhilarated by my Boxster and the driving pleasure it brings.
chevyman - November 25, 2010 at 11:42 am
Marry the Honda..the will stick with you till the end. thanks for looking! http://www.zazzle.com/starbucksfrapp
22011344 - December 6, 2010 at 5:06 pm
“Birth, and copulation, and death.
That’s all the facts when you come down to brass tacks.”
T.S. Eliot
“Sweeney Agonistes”
T.S. Eliot was an adult when he wrote those lines. When you get too old or sick for sex anymore, like I am, you too will be surprised at how much you think about what you no longer have.