Playing on our instincts

Researchers have long known that lab animals’ behavior can be manipulated by artificially stimulating their natural instincts. Over-stimulating animals can provoke such extreme responses that they end up preferring artificial objects to the natural ones for which the instincts were designed. Humans living in modern society are something like those lab animals, a Harvard psychology professor says. Like them, our innate instincts are overstimulated by unnatural products, as well as by advertising and images. And, like them, we respond almost unconsciously: reaching for more food, Web-surfing for porn, dumping time and money on “cute” toys, sitting for hours in front of televisions, and sending troops to fight a dehumanized “them.”read more

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