Our Brains Evolved to Survive, Not to Sustain
Growing up, I was always fascinated by peoples’ behavior. So many things that humans did just didn’t make sense to me. And I’m sure that other people thought the same about me! Little me was always trying to figure out what motivated my sister to be a daredevil, which landed her in the hospital with stiches more than once! That’s when psychology began to pique my interest. Turns out this curiosity has been helpful throughout my work in sustainability. I’m always trying to empathize with alternative perspectives and understand ways to inspire positive change most effectively. Some people attribute the lack of action on sustainability matters (within privileged demographics) to greed, apathy, and short sightedness. Cognitive and behavioral science offer a different framing on (un)sustainability and what to do about it.
Evolution of our brains
Our brains are truly amazing — they allow us to feel empathy, solve highly complex problems, and create beautiful art and music. While our brains help us do lots of cool stuff, the process of natural selection has one objective — survival. Evolution has shaped our brains over millions of years to favor behaviors that, in the distant past, improved our chances of survival and reproduction. This means that, in 2022, we continue to be driven by the hunter-gatherer instincts inherited from our ancestors thousands of years ago. Our brains are wired for a world that is vastly different from the world we find ourselves in today. We are no longer in the age of cavemen, yet our brains are largely wired as if we were. You see, evolution takes time. Our external environment is changing much more rapidly than our brains are evolving; our brains are still largely wired as if food was scarce, predators were abundant, and we lived in tribes.
Wired for survival and novelty
The brains we have today exist based upon what worked in past environments. But our world has changed dramatically since the time of cavemen. Our brain’s reward system is designed to promote behavior that is aimed at survival. Our ancestors engaged in survival activities like hunting and conquest. In turn, they were rewarded with the release of feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. A simple example: food was scarce back then, so our ancestors were rewarded by eating because that behavior increased chances of survival. Today this translates into a tendency for humans to overeat when an abundance of food is available.
Humans today seek out experiences — such as buying an expensive car, house, or watch — that give us the same feelings our ancestors got from the release of neurotransmitters. Unfortunately, this type of survival response that was useful for our ancestors no longer serves us. Engaging in activities like retail therapy and overeating does not contribute to the survival of our species. These activities contribute to poor health, degradation of ecosystems, and negative impacts on the humans producing the goods and services (such as forced labor, poverty wages, unsafe working conditions, and more.)
We have evolved in such a way that the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine is prompted by novelty. This gave our ancestors a survival advantage — without this novelty trigger, they might not have ventured to new places or invented tools to improve quality of life. Unfortunately, seeking dopamine puts us in a state of not being satiated by what we have, even when we have enough. So, the brain pushes us to want more — more stuff, more food, more stimulation — because that helped our ancestors survive. This can also lead to addiction — to shopping, substances, gaming, social media.
While all humans are different and consumption habits vary, we all ultimately share the tendency to make consumption choices based on getting a dopamine hit. In this sense, our brains have evolved to have a distorted worldview, one where we are focused more on acquiring things and less on the actual survival of our species. If something feels good, you can think about why it feels good. It’s very possible is based on adaptive behavior mechanisms inherited from our ancestors.
Wired to have certain values
The traits that helped our ancestors survive are not the same traits needed to help our species survive in the face of global issues like poverty, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Activities that characterized success for our ancestors — like hunting, attracting reproductive partners, tribalism, and hoarding — do not represent success for us in today’s circumstances. The values inherited from our ancestors — status, strength, competition, accumulation — are still used today to measure our success and worth. Status for our ancestors may have been leading the tribe; today we measure status by credentials — education, job, neighborhood, bank account. Competition and strength for our ancestors may have been bringing back the biggest hunt or attracting a good mate; the modern-day mating call consists of flaunting material accumulation. Global society values status symbols — such as luxury brands, cars, houses, jewelry — to demonstrate that one is a worthy partner that can provide.
New values, different from the values inherited from our ancestors, are vital to meet the challenges of our day. Values like cooperation, community, connection, and care are the foundation of a more sustainable tomorrow. Research shows that once our basic needs are met, it is relationships, not things, which are the most fulfilling to humans. And there are signals that certain groups are reimaging their values — from minimalism to the Great Resignation — and what it means to be human.
Wired for social approval
Our brains have also evolved to seek social approval. We are a social species and tend to engage in pro-social activities, as these helped our ancestors survive in tribes. We are motivated to engage in more sustainability-oriented activities if we are primed with information that other humans are also engaging in this behavior. Here are examples:
- In Connecticut and California, households were more likely to install solar panels in neighborhoods that already had them. This phenomenon is called “neighbor effects.”
- Customers at a restaurant in the US who were told that 30% of Americans had started eating less meat were twice as likely to order a meatless lunch.
Wired for short-term gains
Our brains have evolved to respond to events that are happening in the here and now. The present was of most concern to our ancestors — where they would hunt, what they would eat, how they would procreate. We are not wired to place significant emphasis on the future or anything that doesn’t seem to impact our immediate survival. This presents a major problem when we are trying to understand and collectively act on existential issues such as climate change. Ann-Christine Duhaime, neurosurgeon and professor at Harvard, illustrates this predicament: “…our brains, with their reward system which evolved over millions of years, are not ready evolutionarily to perceive climate change, or to change our behavior to act on it.”
Cognitive biases, decision making, and nudging
It’s a false assumption that people generally make choices that are in their best interest. Even in the face of visceral impacts from climate change (and the collective decisions that got us to this point), many people are choosing to go on with life as usual. While we are socialized to believe that we are a rational species, most of our decisions are made unconsciously. The conscious part of our mind accounts for 1/200th of brain functioning. Work done by psychologist Daniel Kahneman shows that it takes concentrated effort to make a conscious decision. This is due to the fact that the choices people make (including choices aimed towards or away from sustainability) are heavily influenced by cognitive biases, or mental shortcuts, which were at one time helpful for survival. As explored above, overemphasis on the present is just one of hundreds of cognitive biases humans have that interfere with how we perceive reality. There are many other cognitive biases that distort human understanding and action on sustainability issues.
It is possible to partially bypass this skewed form of decision making. It’s all about creating the optimal environment. Termed “choice architecture” or “nudging,” this process can help people make decisions that are more oriented towards sustainability. For example, placing the more sustainable options at the beginning of a menu. Research also shows that whatever the default choices are, many people stick with them, even when the stakes are high. The United Nations Environmental Program published a book of green nudges for universities. It’s free to download. However, there are important questions to ask and be answered around the ethics of nudging prior to implementation. A common argument is that nudging can be form of paternalism.
Neuroplasticity
As explored above, our brains make shortcuts aimed at survival. However, in the current circumstances many of these shortcuts are not effectively contributing to our survival and in some cases are leading our species astray. An exciting scientific discovery in brain research is neuroplasticity, which is the capacity our brains have to reorganize themselves. Our nervous systems can change their activities in response to external or internal stimuli by reorganizing their structure and functions. This means that although the evolution of our species is slow and we have hundreds of cognitive biases, it is possible to learn to change our behaviors throughout life. Even the mature brain can adapt to environmental changes, showing that old dogs can learn new tricks.
Self-directed neuroplasticity is the act of consciously rewiring your brain to create positive habits. If you are interested in becoming a more ‘sustainable’ human, you could leverage self-directed neuroplasticity. One of the main ways to do this is through active reflection and mindfulness. You can reflect on how unsustainable behaviors make you feel and how sustainable behaviors make you feel. Reflect by writing, talking to a friend, meditating, and coming back to your reflections periodically. Here are some other tips if you are looking to create a new sustainable habit: aim small, add it your existing routine, celebrate your wins, and reframe negative thinking. Check out this article for more ideas. Other types of external stimuli that can enable sustainability-oriented habits and behaviors include learning, new experiences, and social interaction.
Cultural evolution
Biological evolution is a process that takes place over thousands of years. We generally don’t have significant control over how we evolve biologically. But we do have a choice about how we evolve culturally. We can make a decision to start to evolve culturally at the pace and scale needed to overcome climate change and the sixth mass extinction. We’ve seen many positive signs of consciousness being raised in this regard. From Black Lives Matter to Extinction Rebellion, pockets of humanity are choosing to rise to the occasion. They are paving the way, by showing it’s possible to live out more harmonious values and accompanying behaviors that respect and uphold all life on this planet.
Takeaways
We’ve come a long way since the time of cave people. And yet much of our wiring and instincts haven’t evolved to take most of humanity anywhere beyond survival. We make decisions based on hundreds of cognitive biases that distort our perception of reality. We are wired for short-term gains, social approval, and novelty. The cognitive biases and behaviors that helped our ancestors survive don’t help us survive today. And many of the values we inherited, such as accumulation of material possessions, are threatening the survival and wellbeing of most species, including humans.
While our brain evolution should in no way be used as an excuse for (un)sustainability, it does suggest that greedy and short-sighted thinking and behavior are survival responses. Sir David Attenborough has called humanity a plague on earth. When love for the environment turns into disdain for humanity, the much-needed inspiration for action is lost. Humans created this mess and now we must get ourselves out of it. And by humans here I’m referring to wealthiest 10% of people with the largest footprint — mostly located in the US, UK, Canada, and Europe. These humans must do the work to heal our planet by rewiring our mindsets and behaviors to transition from survival mode to resilience and regeneration mode.
Psychology and behavioral interventions can be enablers for this cultural evolution needed to overcome the multiple crises we face. We can only get to a more sustainable tomorrow if people start making different decisions today. And if we want to motivate people (ourselves included!) to think and act differently, it’s helpful to understand how our brains have evolved and how we make decisions. Nudging, pro-social interventions, and self-directed neuroplasticity are just a few examples of how to leverage cognitive science for cultural evolution. These types of mindset and behavior change programs are essential to any sustainability toolbox.
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