Humans are social creatures. We often assume there is an audience even when there isn’t one. Even if there isn’t one, there’s still the audience of me observing myself and making judgments about how good I look to myself.
You’re right that this seems to be a maladaptive strategy, but it’s also worth remembering that humans are bounded agents. I mean, humans seem to actually do the thing I’ve described, and a reasonable explanation is that they are short sighted in policy planning.
Humans are social creatures. We often assume there is an audience even when there isn’t one. Even if there isn’t one, there’s still the audience of me observing myself and making judgments about how good I look to myself.
You’re right that this seems to be a maladaptive strategy, but it’s also worth remembering that humans are bounded agents. I mean, humans seem to actually do the thing I’ve described, and a reasonable explanation is that they are short sighted in policy planning.