by Dorret Groot Wassink
Director, Target Point Ltd

Sitting on the terrace watching people go by can be very entertaining. Ever wonder why people do the things they do?

-The pretty lady in the high heels with exposing a nice décolleté and having her buttocks just covered by the short skirt she wears.
-The teenage girl covered in piercings, the Goth look.
-The teenage girls are all wearing the same low cut jeans with the short a t-shirt exposing a bare midriff and back…
-The boys with the second hand car, pimped up, windows open and music so loud outside the car you wonder how their ears can still function?
-The businessman in his expensive tailor-made suit, fingering his Blackberry whilst driving a top-of-the-line BMW.
-The lady who looked 20 from a distance yet turns older with every step closer she tales, revealing a painful desire to stay forever young.

The two driving forces of human behaviour are to adapt and attract. Why? For our very survival centuries ago, it was essential to belong to a group, a herd.

Adaptation to the group to which you belonged and the circumstances you were faced with determined if you lived or died. The ones that didn’t adapt died, so only the genes of ’adapted’ survivors passed along.

To attract is the driving force behind being able to find a mate, again, so you can pass your genes on to a next generation. In order to attract you want to show off your genes, make them look attractive to the other sex so they would want to mix theirs with yours. If you were not able to attract a mate then your genes were not passed on. So those genes are no longer around.

In order to show off in the animal kingdom males fight and only the strongest gets to pass on their genes. In order to show off in the human kingdom men fight differently: the businessmen shows off his superior genes by wearing expensive suits, shoes and driving expensive cars. It shows the female of the species, “look I can support any potential babies,” baby.

Participation in extreme sports is much the same thing, “Look at my strong genes doing all of these dangerous things.” Even hooliganism at football games operates under the same mechanism.

Ever wonder why women torture themselves wearing uncomfortable shoes on thin, tall sticks? High heels hurt. There even are pads on the market now to numb the foot so wearing high heels becomes bearable by anesthetising one to pain. Wearing high heels says, “look at me, my genes are so strong I can were these impossible shoes and still walk.” The breast implant culture? Big boobs suggest,  “I can feed babies, I am a good mother, choose me as your mate.” Cosmetic surgery is big money because people want to look young forever. Youth suggests fertility and being fertile attracts mates. Again, instincts are the driving force.

To attract makes us gather more stuff to show the world that we have the strong genes. A strange force of more, more, more that can never have enough. Never too thin, never too rich, never too much chocolate! And, speaking of chocolate, there was a time where being fat was a sign of strong genes. “Look I can gather lots of food, I must be able to support babies.” Or in the case of a woman, “I have an abundant supply for any potential babies.” Think of Rubens’ portraits. In that time large women were a sign of wealth, of strong genes. Now it’s all turned against us. Eating too much causes obesity, yet is another way instinct runs out of control.

So if the force of attraction makes us want to show of our unique, strong genes, what then drives adaptation?

Adaptation wants to make sure we are part of the herd. It makes people follow trends in fashion. We want to have what our friends have, eat what our friends eat, want to be the same. It is also the force that makes us conform to ruling belief systems. To believe what our parents taught us, to accept without question what the minister or priest says, to believe that these people reflect authority, without questioning…

The force of adaptation is essentail for young children to their survive. Stay away from the fire, burns hurt, busy streets are dangerous, etc. etc. etc.  But instincts do not switch off just because you reach an age where you can think for yourself.

Humans are masters of adaptation to different situations – we live all over the world from the coldest to the hottest climates in many different settings, crowded cities, dumps, outstretched wilderness, deserts… and we adapt to what we meet along the way. That’s what made the human race a successful survivor. Even now this adaptation force is what makes us look within the box instead of think outside the box, our brains are made for adaptive thinking.

The force of adaptation wants us to join the herd. It is what causes the fear of speaking out, or standing up in front of the group. It is the root to the fear of conflict, fear of being left out. It’s what keeps people from thinking for themselves.

And throughout the centuries the force of adaptation has been used by leaders of religions, countries and companies. It takes courage to break through the instinctual need of being accepted by the people around us. If an accepted belief system is challenged our instinct is to greet it with denial, laughter or defence. It worked that way when Galileo discovered the earth turned around the sun and it works still this way, just take a look at the twists we take to prove old, outdated beliefs as truth. Just the other day there was a smoker on the radio defending smoking as healthy and a free right, saying there are lots of people who reach old age smoking without any side affects at all. Creationism is another example that shows how people hold on to a story.

It gets even more interesting when the forces can be jointly exploited. Adaptation: wanting to be part of the herd, Attraction wanting to be sexy, attractive. We are constantly living in the clutch of showing off our unique strong genes to attract and want to belong to the herd, be the same as everyone else.

‘Emotional marketing’ exploits this well. In our brain emotions have the right of way, because they reside in the oldest part of our brain, the brain stem. That’s also what controls our instincts. And in having the right of way, before our thinking mind can kick in, it controls much of our behaviour.

It says buy my brand, it makes you attractive, you will belong to the coolest herd in the world and in return I only want your money…

So next time when you are enjoying a drink on a terrace, look around and have a good laugh at all of the instincts you can see running out of control.