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Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences PDF

398 Pages·2011·2.46 MB·English
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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 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.Allrightsarereserved,whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialis concerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation,broadcasting, reproductiononmicrofilmorinanyotherway,andstorageindatabanks.Duplicationofthispublication orpartsthereofispermittedonlyundertheprovisionsoftheGermanCopyrightLawofSeptember9, 1965,initscurrentversion,andpermissionforusemustalwaysbeobtainedfromSpringer.Violations areliabletoprosecutionundertheGermanCopyrightLaw. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,etc.inthispublicationdoesnotimply, evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevantprotective lawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Coverdesign:eStudioCalamarS.L. Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com) 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 ix

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All individuals who operate in the business sphere, whether as consumers, employers, employees, entrepreneurs, or financial traders to name a few constituents, share a common biological heritage and are defined by a universal human nature. As such, it is surprising that so few business scholars have
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