An article in today's New York Times talks about a new study. The researchers concluded that our desire to impress strangers is a quirky and sometimes self destructive evolutionary byproduct.
We spend a huge amount of mental effort thinking about what we buy. Subconsciously much of our buying decision making is based on what our purchase will communicate to others.
Some spend huge amounts of money in this quest for social recognition.
The reason we do this is because for most of evolution we didn't see many strangers, so every social contact held much more gravity. We still assign a false importance to strangers view of us.
According to this study, we still feel a need to show power, amicability and sexual desireability to all strangers, so we put a ton of effort buying the "right" things, going to the right schools, wearing the right clothes.
Unfortunately the scientists also determined that others don't care about what we wear, what school we go to, what car we drive, where we live etc.
Others care about what type of person you are and your personal ethics.
Apparently evolution is good at getting us to avoid death, desperation and celibacy, but it’s not that good at getting us to feel happy.
Study details here : http://ping.fm/oPHeS
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