Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences

398 Pages·2011·2.46 MB·English

by  Gad Saad (auth.)

Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences
.
Gad Saad
Editor
Evolutionary Psychology
in the Business Sciences
Editor
Dr.GadSaad
ConcordiaUniversity
JohnMolsonSchoolofBusiness
DeMaisonneuveBlvd.W.1455
H3G1M8MontrealQue´bec
Canada
[email protected]
ISBN978-3-540-92783-9 e-ISBN978-3-540-92784-6
DOI10.1007/978-3-540-92784-6
SpringerHeidelbergDordrechtLondonNewYork
#Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2011
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To Amar and Samra, my perfect and eternal companions.
.
Foreword
TheThirdChimpanzeeintheOrdinaryBusinessofLife
Occasionally a synthesis transforms a discipline so profoundly that later genera-
tions will not remember it as synthetic. They will know just the elements that
endure in textbook passages. Two examples come to mind: On the Origins of
Species (Darwin 1859) and The General Theory of Employment, Money and
Interest (Keynes 1936). Charles Darwin (1859:63) credits Thomas Malthus’ An
EssayonthePrincipleofPopulation(1798)forhavinginspirednaturalselection.In
contrasttoDarwin’stransdisciplinarysynthesis,thatofTheGeneralTheoryisonly
disciplinary(Leijonhufvud 1968).JohnMaynard Keynes writes“Theideas which
arehereexpressedsolaboriouslyareextremelysimpleandshouldbeobvious.The
difficultylies,notinthenewideas,butinescapingfromtheoldones,whichramify,
forthosebroughtupasmostofushavebeen,intoeverycornerofourminds”(1936:
viii).Fornon-rationalbehaviorthatlaybeyondthedomainofeconomics,Keynes
invoked“animalspirits”andleftitatthat(1936:161–162).Hedismissedevolution
inanearlieressayas“thedoctrinewhichseemedtodrawallthingsoutofChance,
Chaos,andOldTime...ThePrincipleofSurvivaloftheFittestcouldberegardedas
avastgeneralizationofRicardianeconomics”(1926:14).
“Animal spirits” is Keynes’ recognition that non-rational behavior must be
addressed. But merely recognizing something is not very satisfying, intellectually
speaking.Scientistsrelishpuzzle-solvingandsomewillsuggestthatnaturalselec-
tioncanexplaintheoriginsofbehaviorandevendiscernpatternshithertomissed.
Darwinwasthefirsttodoso,butnotyetinthoseterms.“Hewhounderstands[the]
baboonwoulddomoreformetaphysicsthanLocke”(1838:84).Theallusiontoour
primate cousins is hardly rhetorical either then or now. Polymath Jared Diamond
(1992)re-classifiesHomosapienssapiensas“thethird chimpanzee”inanaward-
winning book by the same title and primatologist Frans de Waal enjoys similar
success exposing Our Inner Ape (2005). Diamond and de Waal notwithstanding,
mostpuzzle-solversofbehaviorwritesolelyfortechnicaljournals.Theyhailfrom
diversedisciplinesandarenowdoingwhatThomasKuhn(1962)famouslytermed
vii
viii Foreword
“normalscience”.Underthebannerof“evolutionarypsychology”,thecumulative
scholarshipisimmense.
GadSaadisattheforefront.Hehasbreathtakinglysynthesizedtheliteraturein
an engaging prose while suggesting new research streams. The transdisciplinary
agenda of The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption (2007) and The Consuming
Instinct (2011) has been expanded in Evolutionary Psychology in the Business
Sciences (Saad ed. 2011). It is the third installment of what will surely become a
landmark trilogy. The focus is ostensibly business but I would respectfully dis-
agree; business is too narrow a reading of the broad subject matter covered. A
popularnineteenth-centurydefinitionofeconomicswasthe“thestudyofmankind
intheordinarybusinessoflife”(Marshall1890:1).Inthetwenty-firstcentury,Saad
andhiscolleaguesareexplainingtheevolutionofus—thethirdchimpanzee—inthe
ordinarybusinessoflife.Transformationisunderway.
JosephHenryVogel
ProfessorofEconomics
UniversityofPuertoRico-RioPiedras
www.josephhenryvogel.com
References
Darwin C (1838) Notebook M. The complete works of Charles Darwin online. Available at:
http://darwin-online.org.uk
DarwinC(1859)Ontheoriginofspeciesbymeansofnaturalselection.Murray,London
deWaalF(2005)Ourinnerape:aleadingprimatologistexplainswhywearewhoweare.Penguin,
NewYork
Diamond J (1992) The third chimpanzee: the evolution and future of the human animal.
HarperCollins,NewYork
KeynesJ(1926)Theendoflaissez-faire.HogarthPress,London
KeynesJ(1936)Thegeneraltheoryofemployment,interestandmoney.Macmillan,London
KuhnT(1962)Thestructureofscientificrevolutions.UniversityofChicagoPress,Chicago
LeijonhufvudA(1968)OnKeynesianeconomicsandtheeconomicsofKeynes.OxfordUniversity
Press,NewYork
Malthus T (1798) An essay on the principle of population. Library of Economics and Liberty.
Availableat:http://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPlong.html
MarshallA(1890)Principlesofeconomics.Macmillan,London
SaadG(2007)Theevolutionarybasesofconsumption.PsychologyPress,Mahwah
SaadG(2011)Theconsuminginstinct:whatjuicyburgers,Ferraris,pornography,andgiftgiving
revealabouthumannature.PrometheusBooks,NewYork
SaadG(ed)(2011)Evolutionarypsychologyinthebusinesssciences.Springer,Heidelberg
Preface
Twoimportant“Darwinian”anniversarieswerecelebratedin2009:(1)the150-year
anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species; and
(2)the200-yearanniversaryofCharlesDarwin’sbirth.Ifhewerealivetoday,the
great scientist would be astonished to see the extent to which his work has influ-
encedcountlessacademicdisciplines.Inmyintroductoryarticleofaspecialissue
thatIguesteditedonthefutureofevolutionarypsychologyinthejournalFutures,
I provided a long list of disciplines that have been infused with evolutionary
theorizing (see Saad 2011, Table 1 for representative references for each of the
listed areas). These cover all university faculties including the fine arts and the
humanities(aesthetics/art,architecture,dance,epistemology,ethics,history,interior
design, law, literary studies, morality, musicology, religious studies, and urban
design); the social sciences (anthropology, archaeology, consumer behavior, crimi-
nology, economics, education, family studies, international relations, linguistics,
political science, psychology, public administration, public policy, and sociology);
and the natural and applied sciences (agriculture, animal husbandry, biology, bio-
mimetics,computer science,dietetics/nutrition,ecology,engineering,immunology,
medicine,neurosciences,nursing,pharmacology,physics,physiology,andpsychi-
atry).Thisshoulddispelthenotionthatevolutionarytheorizingislargelyrestricted
tothefieldofbiology.Therealityisthatanyphenomenonthatinvolvesbiological
organismsiswithinthepurviewofevolutionarytheory.
Overthepast12years,agrowingnumberofspecialissuesinacademicjournals
havebeendevotedtotheapplicationsofevolutionarypsychology(orrelatedevo-
lutionary formalisms) in business-related disciplines. These include in decreasing
chronologicalorder:
LeadershipQuarterly:forthcomingspecialissueonthebiologyofleadership;guest
editedbyCarlSenior,NickLee,andMichaelButler
OrganizationalBehaviorandHumanDecisionProcesses:2009specialissueonthe
biologicalbasisofbusiness;guesteditedbyColinCamerer,DrazenPrelec,and
ScottShane
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