16 Evolutionary Psychology and Economics C. Monica Capra and Paul Rubin INTRODUCTION How does evolution shape behavior? Economists believe that individuals have well defined preferences over actions and consumption that they can rank. For exam- ple, an individual who enjoys wine should be able to say if she likes red wine more than white wine and if she likes white wine more than beer. Such ranking or ordering of prefer- ences follows certain intuitive properties that allow economists to represent preferences by means of a utility function. 1 A utility function stipulates a relation- ship between an action and a value. Indeed, if an individual prefers red wine to white wine, then presumably the value she derives from drinking a glass of red wine is higher than from drinking a glass of white wine. All other things constant, she will always choose red wine over white wine. Thus, from the point of view of economics, preferences determine behavior and behavior is aimed at choosing an action that achieves the highest possible value. That is, the utility function is an objective function and individuals choose an action so as to maximize utility subject to constraints. However, are the concepts of preferences and utility consistent with evolu- tionary psychology? That is, is it reasonable to suppose that evolution endowed us with preferences and utilities? Rather than preferences, which are inter- mediate to behavior, one can think of evo- lution as prescribing rules that program or ‘hard-wire’ us for behavior. Given that evolu- tion is concerned with reproductive success, all we need is a set of rules that tell us what to do in each possible circumstance we face. For example, the rules would tell us that if we find high-caloric food, we should eat it right away. If we find a snake, we should avoid it. A problem with this view, however, is that the circumstances we face can change quickly. If one were being observed by a potential competitor, for example, the snake may be something to approach rather than to avoid, so as to signal bravery to a mate. If evolution BK-SAGE-SHACKELFORD_S1V2-200321-Chp16.indd 320 05/08/20 6:21 PM