Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Jimbee on 04/05/2023 11:36:52
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What is the evolutionary significance of fashion? The styles people wear and the make up women use. Because it is not related to things like fertility or health. So it seems important to attraction.
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Modern western facial makeup is designed to mimic orgasm: blushing, widened eyes (including the historic use of belladonna to dilate the pupils) and engorged lips. Baffling. The real thing costs nothing and is much more fun.
I think fashion is all about tribalism - the basic need to belong to a group and to keep up with a leader. But it's different for men: at a posh dinner we all wear uniform, at least a suit, often a very uniform DJ, and even white tie or military ceremonial dress, but women are supposed to get upset if anyone else dresses the same.
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This is Prof Steven Pinker's analysis, you'll find it in The Blank Slate or How the Mind Works, I forget which.
Firstly, high status is an evolutionary advantage: high status individuals find it easier to get a mate because it's a marker for access to resources, so people will compete for it. There are many ways in which they do this, but one of them is what Pinker calls 'Conspicuous Outrage', in a nod to the term Conspicuous Consumption, which is another means of status competition.
If people want to be accepted in society they have to conform: to 'fit in', and those that don't or won't come in for all sorts of mistreatment. This offers a high status individual an opportunity: be overtly different to everyone else and get away with it without being abused because of your status in society: Conspicuous Outrage. This then sets in place a chain reaction.
People in the strata of society immediately below the non-conformer seek to obtain some of his status by copying his behaviour and wearing the same clothes or whatever, then the level below them copies, then the one below that etc. However as soon as the person at the top sees lower status people copying him, he loses status unless he changes his behaviour and does something different again, then again, and again.
So what you have is a series of novel behaviours continually originating at the top of social groups then rippling their way down to the bottom one after the other: "fashion". The 'top' may be a pop star or a page three model, or perhaps just the 'it' kid in your class at school, the point is they have some status to assert within the group they mix among.
The problem with fashion is that it's socially destructive. Not only is it exclusive, seeking to marginalise those who don't conform, but it's also criminally wasteful to throw away stuff just because it's unfashionable rather than unserviceable. Copying others and following like a sheep rather than having a mind of your own is also fatuous.
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I always assumed it was like the peacock's tail.
A way to show off that you are so successful that you can waste resources on stupid things.
That's fine- until (as has been pointed out) you start trashing the earth by squandering resources.
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We have talked about fashion in clothes and makeup.
Another kind of fashion is in music.
- Partly I think that teenagers rebel against anything their parents liked
- Partly we get "tired" of the same old thing
- Musicians & performers want a higher status/popularity by doing something different (but not so different that nobody likes it). This leads to a somewhat incremental change through competition with other performers
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"Social Influencers" are a more varied set of "high status" individuals who are always trying to do something different, to get more views.
- I recently attended an exhibition of Monet's Nymph?as (Water Lilies) - to see several social influencers posing as additional nymphs amongst the lillies
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The 'top' may be a pop star or a page three model,
In my day, Page 3 models were not admired for their clothes - at most, a string of beads and a smile. Who could possibly object to that fashion?