The primed men were also willing (or at least said they were willing) to act heroically as well as spend—but only if the action suggested was life-threatening.

I wonder if for the same reasons it works the other way too – being in such situations when potential mates are watching increases arousal. I’m thinking of a certain study by Dutton and Aron (1974)…

In the study, an attractive woman approached men while they were walking across the Capilano River Bridge in British Columbia. Only those without a female companion were approached. The woman asked the men to make up a brief story for a project she was doing on creativity. The Capilano River Bridge sways precariously more than 200 feet above rapids and rocks. The female interviewer made the same request of other men crossing a much safer, lower bridge. The men on the Capilano River Bridge told more sex-ually oriented stories and rated the female interviewer more attractive than did men on the lower, less frightening bridge.

By way of analogy consider the Newtonian model of physics. So long as we are describing objects that move slowly relative to the speed of light it’s meaningful to say that 1/2mv^2 is the definition of kinetic energy while also thinking of kinetic energy as the capacity to do work. In the Newtonian model those two notions are necessarily coextensive so as Quine classically points out there is just no fact of that matter as to which of these is the ‘real’ definition of kinetic energy pre-Einstein. However, when we leave the Newtonian realm and try to deploy the concept of Newtonian kinetic energy and insist it both be computed using 1/2mv^2 (m=rest mass) and satisfy our idea of energy as capacity to do work the concept itself is revealed to be no longer well defined.

I would argue that once you leave the world of folk psychology and start doing these kinds of experiments concepts like ‘want’, ‘desire’, ‘motivation’ etc.. suffer a similar fate. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that once you start doing serious brain science even our notion of causation is rendered incoherent (yes there are regularities across time but I submit that causation is a concept rooted in the simplifying assumption that our deciscions are made ‘freely’).

So ultimately I think it’s just misleading to describe the observed result as showing that people are ‘really’ doing these things for ignoble reasons or the like. Rather those concepts simply stop being good ways to describe the world in these kind of situations.

I don’t see much tension. Indeed it seems to be very similar to men’s behavior. Sure there is a sense in which every guy would ‘prefer’ to be married to Angelina Jolie or another world famous model/actress but it’s only the very weak counterfactual sense that if they’d been invited to Hollywood parties and been hit on by movie stars during their teen/early adult years they would have most probably taken that option instead of pursuing the kind of girl they did/are hooking up with.

Going for broke and refusing all but the very best potential mates regardless of your own pulling power isn’t a very good genetic strategy. Much better to cut your chances of getting with a super model by a tenth or even a hundredth if that bumps up your chances of landing the slightly more fit mate in your league. In particular once you realize certain mates our out of your league it will be advantageous to signal to those who are that you’re willing to make long term commitments to raising offspring with them instead of trading up first chance you get. The obvious way for this to happen is to evolve the ability to genuienly feel strong sexual attraction and strong devotion to your best plausible option.

In other words men and women are evolved to find mates in their own league attractive even if that’s pretty far down on the desirability scale. Women find project boys attractive because they look like an evolutionary fire sale. Since her competitors don’t see the boy’s potential the girl has a good chance or landing him even though mating with him offers more benefits than most of the guys in her league.

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I realize I’m not giving you a theory. I’m just suggesting why this doesn’t seem problematic to me.

In any case, the classical model of an person as a single entity with a single set of well-established desires clearly breaks down in these circumstances.

• Inspired
• Humiliated
• Excited
• Sobered

Don’t priming effects typically vanish when subjects are informed of the effect? [Priming 'priming' is an apparently effective self-antidote.] Still, I’m more convinced now that early language was primarily or significantly devoted to manipulating each other’s behavior.