Humans are unique compared to the rest of the animal kingdom because not only do we adapt to fit our environment, but we can also change our environment to better fit ourselves.
Technology especially has given us the ability to change our environment in many ways…increasing food supply, traveling faster and greater distances, expanded communication with people from all over the world, air conditioning, plumbing, garbage disposal, and mass-produced consumer products.
In many ways, standards of living have increased all over the world, and we are much richer and prosperous thanks to all of these advancements in human civilization.
Our modern world is very different than the one we evolved in for thousands of years. And due to this mismatch, many of our natural instincts that once served a useful purpose are now amplified and hijacked in unhealthy ways.
Supernormal Stimuli is an excellent book by Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett that breaks down the many ways our natural instincts have been hijacked by modern culture and society.
The term “supernormal stimuli” was first coined by Dutch biologist Niko Tinbergen in 1953 when he observed that you could create an exaggerated version of a natural stimuli that would create a heightened response in the animal being observed.
Animals will often choose the exaggerated stimuli over the real thing. For example, stickleback fish try to mate with a fake round-bellied model over a real egg-bearing female. Song birds will abandon their real eggs to sit on enlarged, fake blue eggs (even so big that they will continue to fall off). And male butterflies ignore a live female to try to mate with cardboard cylinders (that don’t even have wings!).
As long as the trait being amplified plays a key role in the animals’ primal urges, the animal will consistently choose the “supernormal stimuli” over the normal one. And humans are the same way…
In Dierdre Barrett’s book, she explores some of the central ways that “supernormal stimuli” have hijacked our habits and behaviors in unhealthy ways. Here are a few key takeaways.
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