Hah. Neither of your offered explanations discriminates between men and women (the first one would actually imply men dressing up more, because men have more to gain from status), and neither explains why women consciously try to stand out from the group when dressing up, e.g. get upset when they see some other woman dressed identically (both explanations would imply the reverse reaction). My obvious explanation of sexual selection accounts for both.
Your “obvious” explanation of sexual selection does not explain why (some) women spend inordinate amounts of time and money seeking out accessories that men don’t notice or care about, and continue to seek these out well after they have married and (sometimes) over the objections of their spouses. Also, I was talking about accessories, not clothing.
My explanation does not discriminate between men and women; society does. Each has a different method of showing off status. Men show off status via different accessories, namely gizmos like phones and watches and conspicuous consumption and in some cases shoes and jewelery (and cars, but those signal between genders, as well). And just because men may have more to gain by signaling status, that does not predict that they will gain status through the same mechanisms. Men who spend a lot more on clothes than their actual status justifies tend to be looked down upon by other men—status is one of those things that if you try too hard to show you have it, you lose it. The same standard (to my knowledge) does not generally apply to women.
Or, more simply, most men don’t really see much about how they dress (or their appearance generally) as relating to their social status, where more women see it as being more important. This would be an evolutionary motivator (show high status) operating through a social outlet (by dressing a certain way).
I was explicitly not talking about clothing, but about accessories, so the “same outfit” really is a straw man. Though I am uncertain how sexual selection explains it better than status signaling (if someone is wearing the same thing as you that seems like it would obviously dilute your status signal heavily), but that’s not the point since I was talking about accessories specifically.
My “people value looking good” also explains both of these phenomena FWIW; men don’t see nice clothing as necessary to looking good, and women might have their self-image of looking good (and special) harmed if they show up dressed exactly like another woman.
women might have their self-image of looking good (and special) harmed if they show up dressed exactly like another woman.
Since I don’t care as much about what I wear as most women (evidence: I own exactly one pair of shoes, typically wear no jewelry except a digital watch, and usually go at least several months between reluctant visits to clothing vendors), I can’t access a lot of this psychology via introspection. However, I suspect that when women dress up, the idea is to display a skill, at least as much as it is to display status. The skill is to create a unique, yet suitably mainstream-attractive look (or to hit some sweet spot of quirkiness). Showing up in duplicate outfits impugns the skills of both women (or more, if you wind up with a situation like that scene in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”). If you wear expensive things, most other people cannot afford those articles and you get an automatic “uniqueness” edge; this explains why people who can afford very expensive accessories deplore knockoffs.
I agree pretty much entirely; I didn’t want to get into the issue of displaying skill and taste, since it gets even more complex and my post seemed long enough.
I’m not sure about the distaste for knockoffs coming from a desire for “uniqueness.” I don’t think that rich women mind that other rich women have the same, say, Luis Vuitton bag; I think they mind when any woman who wants it can have a Luis Vuitton bag that looks like what they spent serious money on. It ceases to be a clear status symbol. It seems that the effect on signaling is greater than the effect on uniqueness.
However, I suspect that when women dress up, the idea is to display a skill, at least as much as it is to display status.
I’ve seen a different evolutionary explanation, which is that females’ gene propagation is best served by cultivating uniqueness, in order to convince a man that there is no one else like her. Whereas a man’s gene propagation is best served (if he’s not the leader of the group, that is) if all men appear to be the same.
The article I read about this discussed dancing as an example of this phenomenon, noting that in nearly every known culture, traditional dances done by females are either individual or emphasize individual characteristics, whereas dances done by men are synchronous group affairs in which they all try to look the same, in order to disguise their individual differences and conceal their relative skills.
There was also a bunch of stuff about scent, martial ability, and other signals being read in male/female dances, how certain male-female dance moves common to many cultures have the function of bringing a woman’s face past a man’s underarm so she can smell his genetic compatibility or lack thereof, how men’s skill at individual dance affects both their perceived desirability as sex partners by women and how likely they are to stray… even an explanation of why men are generally far more reluctant to dance or learn how to do so than women are, unless they are confident they’ll be highly skilled at it.
Anyway, the strong implication I got was that women would likely have evolved to have a negative reaction to looking the same as another woman, because it would make them appear more interchangeable, and thus less likely to sustain the commitment of a man through pregnancy and childbirth (vs. “losing” the man to her lookalike competitor).
Whatever form this reaction manifests in—whether as just a feeling of being gauche or unskilled, or as an elaborate theory of “objectification”, there would certainly be a strong evolutionary benefit to such an adaptation, and quite likely a bigger benefit than would come from merely displaying skill to other women. Of course, it might also be that skill at presentation also signals to other women, “I am a strong competitor, so don’t try to take ‘my’ man” (whether ‘my’ means the one they have, or the one they’re going after).
However, I suspect that when women dress up, the idea is to display a skill, at least as much as it is to display status.
In reality, the wealthier you are, the less personal skill is involved, to the point where red-carpet celebrities are dressed by couturiers (i.e. at x event so-and-so was dressed by Marc Jacobs). I suppose the less status you have, the more skill you need, but I think that skill is employed for the purpose of faking higher status.
You can still go very, very wrong despite spending a lot of money. Celebrities with couture designers are in kind of a special position, since no matter how bad they look, they have a significant power to define what counts as fashionable. Rich people who are not fashion icons can go very very wrong, even (and in some cases especially) if they buy whatever couture the celebrities were wearing.
I don’t like your explanations because they don’t really explain anything, just shuffle complexity around. “See, there’s this thing called phlogiston, err status, that says you have to do this if you’re a man but something different if you’re a woman, for reasons unspecified.”
Take a woman to a store and you’ll see that the process of buying a handbag is guided by reasoning very similar to the process of buying a dress. The dress is clearly for attracting mates; what if the handbag is just a side effect, some clever marketer’s way to hack the mate attraction instinct?
what if the handbag is just a side effect, some clever marketer’s way to hack the mate attraction instinct?
Easy. Price and conspicuous branding. There are many, many accessories (and regular clothing) that do not look all that much different from cheaper substitutes, yet cost a very large amount of money. Think in particular of products that display very large logos or brand names—you think people buy these because the logos look so good? My favorite example is “celebrity”-style sunglasses—the huge sunglasses some celebrities wear in order to make them hard to recognize. This is a product that attractive people wear for the express purpose of hiding how they look. Yet (among some subgroups) these are quite popular, and I know women who will drop several hundred dollars on a designer pair of these, despite having a face that they are not served by hiding.
It is clear that (some) women (and men) value such products precisely because they cost so much. Mate selection does not explain why people would spend a whole lot more on an item that does not make them look better. Status signaling explains this quite well; the purpose of the $1000 bag isn’t to look good so much as it is to say, “I spent $1000 on this bag.” An ev-psych approach would explain why men would want to show this off, hence the Ferrari, but I don’t really see how showing off wealth would help women attract desirable men, certainly not to the extent that some women spend on these things, and certainly not after they already have a mate.
And phlogiston? You sincerely believe that men and women signal status by doing the same things? Or do you not believe that social status exists? Do you think that a man and a woman both owning a red Ferrari signal the exact same things? Do you think people will view a man with a $1000 handbag just like they’ll view a woman with a $1000 handbag? “Phlogiston” makes a delightful straw man, but a terrible argument. Social status exists, and men and women do actually do different things to express having it, because society expects different things of men and women.
Some things, particularly human social customs, are really, really complicated. The fact that you would prefer a simple and elegant answer does not change this brute fact.
Hah. Neither of your offered explanations discriminates between men and women (the first one would actually imply men dressing up more, because men have more to gain from status), and neither explains why women consciously try to stand out from the group when dressing up, e.g. get upset when they see some other woman dressed identically (both explanations would imply the reverse reaction). My obvious explanation of sexual selection accounts for both.
Your “obvious” explanation of sexual selection does not explain why (some) women spend inordinate amounts of time and money seeking out accessories that men don’t notice or care about, and continue to seek these out well after they have married and (sometimes) over the objections of their spouses. Also, I was talking about accessories, not clothing.
My explanation does not discriminate between men and women; society does. Each has a different method of showing off status. Men show off status via different accessories, namely gizmos like phones and watches and conspicuous consumption and in some cases shoes and jewelery (and cars, but those signal between genders, as well). And just because men may have more to gain by signaling status, that does not predict that they will gain status through the same mechanisms. Men who spend a lot more on clothes than their actual status justifies tend to be looked down upon by other men—status is one of those things that if you try too hard to show you have it, you lose it. The same standard (to my knowledge) does not generally apply to women.
Or, more simply, most men don’t really see much about how they dress (or their appearance generally) as relating to their social status, where more women see it as being more important. This would be an evolutionary motivator (show high status) operating through a social outlet (by dressing a certain way).
I was explicitly not talking about clothing, but about accessories, so the “same outfit” really is a straw man. Though I am uncertain how sexual selection explains it better than status signaling (if someone is wearing the same thing as you that seems like it would obviously dilute your status signal heavily), but that’s not the point since I was talking about accessories specifically.
My “people value looking good” also explains both of these phenomena FWIW; men don’t see nice clothing as necessary to looking good, and women might have their self-image of looking good (and special) harmed if they show up dressed exactly like another woman.
Since I don’t care as much about what I wear as most women (evidence: I own exactly one pair of shoes, typically wear no jewelry except a digital watch, and usually go at least several months between reluctant visits to clothing vendors), I can’t access a lot of this psychology via introspection. However, I suspect that when women dress up, the idea is to display a skill, at least as much as it is to display status. The skill is to create a unique, yet suitably mainstream-attractive look (or to hit some sweet spot of quirkiness). Showing up in duplicate outfits impugns the skills of both women (or more, if you wind up with a situation like that scene in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”). If you wear expensive things, most other people cannot afford those articles and you get an automatic “uniqueness” edge; this explains why people who can afford very expensive accessories deplore knockoffs.
I agree pretty much entirely; I didn’t want to get into the issue of displaying skill and taste, since it gets even more complex and my post seemed long enough.
I’m not sure about the distaste for knockoffs coming from a desire for “uniqueness.” I don’t think that rich women mind that other rich women have the same, say, Luis Vuitton bag; I think they mind when any woman who wants it can have a Luis Vuitton bag that looks like what they spent serious money on. It ceases to be a clear status symbol. It seems that the effect on signaling is greater than the effect on uniqueness.
I’ve seen a different evolutionary explanation, which is that females’ gene propagation is best served by cultivating uniqueness, in order to convince a man that there is no one else like her. Whereas a man’s gene propagation is best served (if he’s not the leader of the group, that is) if all men appear to be the same.
The article I read about this discussed dancing as an example of this phenomenon, noting that in nearly every known culture, traditional dances done by females are either individual or emphasize individual characteristics, whereas dances done by men are synchronous group affairs in which they all try to look the same, in order to disguise their individual differences and conceal their relative skills.
There was also a bunch of stuff about scent, martial ability, and other signals being read in male/female dances, how certain male-female dance moves common to many cultures have the function of bringing a woman’s face past a man’s underarm so she can smell his genetic compatibility or lack thereof, how men’s skill at individual dance affects both their perceived desirability as sex partners by women and how likely they are to stray… even an explanation of why men are generally far more reluctant to dance or learn how to do so than women are, unless they are confident they’ll be highly skilled at it.
Anyway, the strong implication I got was that women would likely have evolved to have a negative reaction to looking the same as another woman, because it would make them appear more interchangeable, and thus less likely to sustain the commitment of a man through pregnancy and childbirth (vs. “losing” the man to her lookalike competitor).
Whatever form this reaction manifests in—whether as just a feeling of being gauche or unskilled, or as an elaborate theory of “objectification”, there would certainly be a strong evolutionary benefit to such an adaptation, and quite likely a bigger benefit than would come from merely displaying skill to other women. Of course, it might also be that skill at presentation also signals to other women, “I am a strong competitor, so don’t try to take ‘my’ man” (whether ‘my’ means the one they have, or the one they’re going after).
In reality, the wealthier you are, the less personal skill is involved, to the point where red-carpet celebrities are dressed by couturiers (i.e. at x event so-and-so was dressed by Marc Jacobs). I suppose the less status you have, the more skill you need, but I think that skill is employed for the purpose of faking higher status.
You can still go very, very wrong despite spending a lot of money. Celebrities with couture designers are in kind of a special position, since no matter how bad they look, they have a significant power to define what counts as fashionable. Rich people who are not fashion icons can go very very wrong, even (and in some cases especially) if they buy whatever couture the celebrities were wearing.
I don’t like your explanations because they don’t really explain anything, just shuffle complexity around. “See, there’s this thing called phlogiston, err status, that says you have to do this if you’re a man but something different if you’re a woman, for reasons unspecified.”
Take a woman to a store and you’ll see that the process of buying a handbag is guided by reasoning very similar to the process of buying a dress. The dress is clearly for attracting mates; what if the handbag is just a side effect, some clever marketer’s way to hack the mate attraction instinct?
Easy. Price and conspicuous branding. There are many, many accessories (and regular clothing) that do not look all that much different from cheaper substitutes, yet cost a very large amount of money. Think in particular of products that display very large logos or brand names—you think people buy these because the logos look so good? My favorite example is “celebrity”-style sunglasses—the huge sunglasses some celebrities wear in order to make them hard to recognize. This is a product that attractive people wear for the express purpose of hiding how they look. Yet (among some subgroups) these are quite popular, and I know women who will drop several hundred dollars on a designer pair of these, despite having a face that they are not served by hiding.
It is clear that (some) women (and men) value such products precisely because they cost so much. Mate selection does not explain why people would spend a whole lot more on an item that does not make them look better. Status signaling explains this quite well; the purpose of the $1000 bag isn’t to look good so much as it is to say, “I spent $1000 on this bag.” An ev-psych approach would explain why men would want to show this off, hence the Ferrari, but I don’t really see how showing off wealth would help women attract desirable men, certainly not to the extent that some women spend on these things, and certainly not after they already have a mate.
And phlogiston? You sincerely believe that men and women signal status by doing the same things? Or do you not believe that social status exists? Do you think that a man and a woman both owning a red Ferrari signal the exact same things? Do you think people will view a man with a $1000 handbag just like they’ll view a woman with a $1000 handbag? “Phlogiston” makes a delightful straw man, but a terrible argument. Social status exists, and men and women do actually do different things to express having it, because society expects different things of men and women.
Some things, particularly human social customs, are really, really complicated. The fact that you would prefer a simple and elegant answer does not change this brute fact.