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Depression
Mating budget bankruptcy
What would it be like to have less than nothing?
Posted March 6, 2010
What would your life be like if you were obese, friendless, and poverty stricken, living with a mother who hates you, and a father who rapes you? Most of us probably don't even want to think about such questions, much less sit through a movie about just such a life.
The main character in Precious is an unattractive poor teenage girl who has never had a boyfriend, and who has little prospect of ever getting one. The other main character in the movie is her mother, who is chronically unemployed, cheating the welfare system so she can stay at home and watch television all day. The mother is physically and emotionally abusive toward Precious. The movie is based on a book by Sapphire, who met young girls like Precious when she was teaching literacy in Harlem and the Bronx.
Counterfactual Thinking and Downward Social Comparison
There's a fascinating social psychological literature on "counterfactual ruminations" or thoughts about how my life would have gone "if only" something had gone differently than it did (see for example, Roese et al., 2006). If you're like most people, you probably at least occasionally fantasize about what it would be like to live someone else's life. If you're a man perhaps you've imagined what it would be like to be someone like George Clooney or Tiger Woods, with dozens of women throwing themselves at you. If you're a woman, you may have wondered what it would have been like to be as glamorous as Grace Kelly, with millionaire princes lining up to woo you.
When you go to the typical movie, you get to empathize with the trials and tribulations of someone who looks like Cameron Diaz, who is perhaps feeling slightly unfulfilled with life in the upper middle class suburbs, and slightly disillusioned with her wealthy lawyer husband, played by some fellow who looks like Jude Law. These characters typically have a nearly limitless budget of mating dollars, and their dilemma involves deciding how to spend it (Jude Law is so good-looking, but Hugh Grant has a better sense of humor and seems so much more interested, gosh, what's a poor gal to do?).
Our colleague Norm Li has done several studies looking at people's mating budgets -- asking what would happen if you had an unlimited budget, as compared to the more reasonable and limited budget most of us mortals work with (Li et al., 2002). That research forced people to make trade-offs in choosing mates - to ask not what I would want if I were Brad Pitt, but what I would be willing to give up if I had to make everyday compromises. But we've never even thought about what it would be like to have no mating budget at all.
Should you spend $10 to watch the sad and ugly life of Precious when you can go gaze at the beautiful people in Up in the Air? We think the answer is yes. It's not because the movie will make you feel good. It won't, at least not in the way that The Blind Side or Up does. You may get a sort of negatively charged boost from this movie because of what social psychologists call downward social comparison. Unfortunately, that only works when you're having an especially bad day, and for most of you, who own a personal computer and can read, there's very little grounds for comparison with Precious's life. But you should watch this movie because, unless you're quite jaded, it will make you feel some deep empathy for your fellow human beings. And it will also make you feel some admiration for the human determination to overcome adversity.
Contrast Effects
The central character in Up in the Air (played by George Clooney) begins as a successful and charming business executive with commitment problems, and ends up as a successful and charming business executive with commitment problems. The central character in Avatar begins handsome but handicapped, and ends up becoming the head warrior in a race of beautiful superhumanoids. Getting ahead for Precious, by contrast, involves the tiniest of steps out of a living Hell. But she never gives up. When she gets the slightest break, like beginning to learn to read, and nearly passing the test to get into the GED class, it feels surprisingly uplifting.
There is another kind of negatively charged boost you might get out of watching Precious. One of us has conducted a series of studies demonstrating that people feel less positively about their mates, and about their own value as a mate, after looking at beautiful and successful people (see for example, Gutierres et al., 1999; Kenrick et al., 1994). And other research out of our labs shows that people's eyes are naturally drawn to beautiful people (Maner et al., 2003). All that research suggests that if you could bring yourself to spend less time looking at characters who look like Cameron Diaz and Jude Law, and more time looking at people less physically fortunate, it might give you a more realistic take on your attractiveness, and that of your partner.
The Oscars will be awarded this weekend. Of the 9 we've reviewed so far (see links below), Precious is one of the best. Although we're both still big fans of Avatar, if we had to pick an underdog, this is one we'd both root for. We think the odds it will beat Avatar are about as good as those of Precious getting a date with Brad Pitt.
We both give an "A" to Precious (the full title of the movie is Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire but try using that in the middle of a sentence).
Links to our other reviews of Oscar Best Picture nominees:
When Life Imitates a Made-For-TV movie: Review of The Blind Side
The Morality of Mayhem and Murder: Inglourious Basterds
Avatar 3D: Evolutionary Psychology goes to Hollywood
Evolutionary Psychology and the Oscar Race II: The Hurt Locker
For a psychological lift on Valentine's Day, Watch UP
Modern technology as intimacy's enemy: Are we all "Up in the Air?"
Two kinds of bad guys: District 9 and human prejudice.
Does God Exist, and If So, Who Cares? A Serious Man
References (continue on next page)
Gutierres, S.E., Kenrick, D.T., & Partch, J. (1999). Contrast effects in self assessment reflect gender differences in mate selection criteria. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1126-1134.
Kenrick, D.T., Neuberg, S.L., Zierk, K., & Krones, J. (1994). Evolution and social cognition: Contrast effects as a function of sex, dominance, and physical attractiveness. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 210-217.
Li, N.P., Bailey, J. M., Kenrick, D.T., & Linsenmeier, J.A. (2002). The necessities and luxuries of mate preferences: Testing the trade-offs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 947-955.
Maner, J. K., Kenrick, D. T., & Becker, D. V., Delton, A. W., Hofer, B., Wilbur, C. J., & Neuberg, S. L. (2003). Sexually selective cognition: Beauty captures the mind of the beholder. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6, 1107-1120.
Roese, N., Pennington, G.L., Coleman, J., Janicki, M., Li, N.P., & Kenrick, D.T. (2006). Sex differences in regret: All for love or some for lust? Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 770-780.
Wills, T. A. (1981). Downward comparison principles in social psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 245-271.
