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Addressing the sins of consumer psychology via the evolutionary lens
Author(s) -
Saad Gad
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
psychology and marketing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.035
H-Index - 116
eISSN - 1520-6793
pISSN - 0742-6046
DOI - 10.1002/mar.21446
Subject(s) - evolutionary psychology , consilience , scope (computer science) , consumer behaviour , sociobiology , psychology , nomological network , epistemology , sociology , marketing , social psychology , computer science , service (business) , philosophy , business , programming language
As is true of any scientific discipline, consumer psychology faces some challenges, many of which can be ameliorated via the use of evolutionary psychology. This includes broadening the scope of the research questions tackled as well as their interestingness; increasing the epistemological and theoretical scope of the discipline; reducing the likelihood of succumbing to the WEIRD sampling bias; decreasing methodological fixation; increasing interdisciplinarity; and augmenting the ethos of replications as well as the field's consilience via the building of consilient nomological networks of cumulative evidence. Modern‐day consumers exhibit preferences and behaviors that are vestiges of evolutionary forces that occurred long ago in deep evolutionary time. Marketing academics and practitioners alike, seeking to unlock the mysteries of what makes consumers tick, can only be enriched in recognizing that Homo consumericus is a product of the same evolutionary processes that have shaped all life forms. To deny this reality ensures that marketing knowledge will remain largely decoupled from biology, and in doing so engender at best an incomplete understanding of consumer behavior.