Why Is a Polo Shirt Like a Peacock’s Tail?

Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe the wasteful habits of displaying expensive goods that did not have inherent practical benefits. He argued that the purpose of these displays was to advertise one’s membership in the upper class, as only the very wealthy could afford them. Veblen was inspired in part by Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution. Darwin himself was greatly puzzled by what he considered wasteful investments of energy in elaborate physiological displays in the animal kingdom. He saw these features as the greatest threat to his theory of natural selection. Why would something like the peacock’s tail feathers evolve, as they threatened survival because of their impediment to foraging and avoiding predators? Darwin eventually realized that energetically costly physiological features are attractive to reproductive partners because they advertise mate quality, and thus provide a reproductive advantage. Thus, he complemented the theory of natural selection with the theory of sexual selection.

Evolutionary psychologists have combined these insights in an ultimate explanation of wealth displays. Men purchase and display luxury consumer goods because these products signal their economic power. These displays enhance their attractiveness to potential reproductive partners because they predict resource investment in offspring, which is very important for enabling children to survive and thrive.

There is considerable evidence for the relationship between men’s socio-economic status and their abilities to acquire mates, and to produce and support offspring. Evolutionary psychologists have even made a direct analogy between men’s displays of luxury goods and the grand display of the peacock’s tail feathers.

However, there is a fundamental challenge to this analogy. The peacock’s tail feathers are a signal of the bird’s genetic qualities, rather than investment of resources in or caretaking offspring by the male bird. The feathers are an example of secondary sex characteristics, features that appear in animals at sexual maturity but are not directly part of the reproductive system. These ornaments and armaments facilitate mating competition. They enable quick and reliable assessments of physiological quality, physical strength, social status, dominance, and aggressiveness by competitors and potential reproductive partners. The more exaggerated secondary sex characteristics are in males across species, the more males focus their energies on mating competition (acquiring mates), and the less they invest in care of offspring.

Does A Similar Pattern Exist In Humans?

But this creates a problem for the standard explanation of conspicuous consumption in evolutionary psychology. Peacocks do not provide any paternal care; instead, they have sharp spurs on their legs that they use as weapons in territorial fights with other males. Extravagant luxury displays could represent investments in mating competition, which is inversely related to tendencies to invest in children. Similarly, men could use their money to support their partner and children or use it to attract partners. So, a display of wealth by itself may not be a reliable signal of financial investments in children. How can we tell the meaning of these wealth displays?

Perhaps the appearance features of the consumer products themselves could be informative. We proposed that products which have some of the qualities associated with secondary sex characteristics—such as exaggerated size, elaborate coloration, or lower-pitched sounds—could be indications of investment in mate attraction.

How We Tested This Idea

Our participants viewed polo style shirts with small and large versions of a luxury clothing brand logo. Some participants predicted the characteristics of the man who owned each shirt. In another group, male participants were asked which shirt they would wear in specific social contexts, and female participants were asked which shirt they thought men would be more likely to wear.

Men owning the large-logo shirts were seen differently than those wearing the same shirts with smaller logos. They were rated as:

• higher on mating effort
• lower on parental investment
• higher on interest in brief sexual affairs
• lower on interest in long-term committed romantic relationships
• higher in attractiveness to women for brief sexual affairs, and
• lower in attractiveness to women for long-term committed relationships

In another study, men said they would be most likely to wear the large-logo shirt when competing for social dominance or attempting to attract a sexual partner. They were least likely to wear the large-logo shirt when meeting their potential in-laws or applying for a job. These results challenge the notion that men’s luxury displays are a forecast of high levels of investment in their children. In fact, men who ostentatiously flaunt their wealth may be less reliable as long-term partners and less likely to use their wealth to secure their children’s financial futures. This conclusion may ruffle some feathers, though it could provide a better understanding of financial behaviors and outcomes.

For Further Reading

Kruger, D. J. (2022). Phenotypic mimicry distinguishes cues of mating competition from paternal investment in men’s conspicuous consumption. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 48, 396-411. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211007229

Kruger, D. J. (2022). Advancing the understanding of phenotypic mimicry in men’s conspicuous consumption. Evolutionary Psychological Science.  https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211007229

Daniel Kruger is a Research Investigator in the Institute for Social Research at University of Michigan. He has a broad range of research interests, with many topics related to life history theory.