Evolutionary psychology in marketing: Deep, debated, but fancier with fieldwork

Abstract

This guest editorial starts with an introduction of evolutionary psychology (EP) in the marketing domain and delineates some of the building blocks of EP, both generally and when applied to consumer research. While EP is a debated discipline among marketing scholars, with some praising its presence and others perceiving it as patriarchal, politically incorrect, and problematic, a central tenet of this metaframework is a focus on deeprooted, ultimate explanations for human behavior. Marketing scholars have traditionally focused on proximate "how" and "what" questions, which are indeed important to address. However, unlike such proximate questions, EP strives to capture the ultimate "why" reasons behind our purchases and product preferences in terms of which adaptive functions they may have in giving us an evolutionary advantage. Having highlighted and exemplified this proximate-ultimate distinction, I then present each state-of-the-art paper included in this special issue. All special issue articles use a variety of EP arguments and theories to elucidate several consumption-relevant phenomena with implications for marketing theory and practice. In closing, I provide a set of suggestions for future EP-based consumer research, meant to make this field flourish further.

Freedom and giving in game streams: A Foucauldian exploration of tips and donations on Twitch

“…Finally, we have illustrated how giving emerges in this context as a positive outcome of Twitch users practising freedom in the Foucauldian sense. From a broader perspective, this paper forms part of an emergent stream of literature that emphasizes stakeholder wellbeing and responsibility in marketing (e.g., Pedersen, 2021; Yoganathan et al, 2021), as well as infuses rich theoretical foundations from other disciplines into marketing (e.g., Otterbring, 2021).…”

Too close for comfort? The impact of salesperson‐customer proximity on consumers' purchase behavior

“…Thus, a fruitful avenue for future research would be to explore the potentially moderating role of culture (e.g., contact vs. noncontact) in shaping consumer responses to salesperson‐customer proximity. Additionally, given the social distancing guidelines mandated by public health officials since the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic, it would be interesting to examine whether and how the effects we have documented could shift as the norm of maintaining a safe distance between oneself and others becomes more commonplace (Otterbring, 2021; Roggeveen & Sethuraman, 2020). Indeed, research on the downstream effects of physical proximity on customers' purchase behavior is likely prone to contextual sensitivity (Van Bavel et al, 2016) and may thus vary not only as a function of culture, but also due to pandemic‐induced societal norms.…”

Old minds, new marketplaces: How evolved psychological mechanisms trigger mismatched food preferences

“…Importantly, asking female consumers why they choose a skimpier dress at that time would likely be futile, even if they attempted to answer such a question honestly, as they are probably unaware of all motives underlying their choices (cf. Otterbring, 2021). Similarly, shoppers and-as we argue throughout this article-marketers and policymakers are frequently unaware of the motives shaping their decisions in the food domain.…”