MARK312 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: The Human Instinct, Conspicuous Consumption, Human Behaviour

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Marketing
• Course: MARK312
• Professor: Jim Swaffield

Document Summary

To be able to describe how the structures of the brain (limbic system and cerebral cortex) influence human needs and consumer behavior. Natural selection is the gradual process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment. Natural selection is the key mechanism of evolution: the word evolution does not imply a genetic improvement. There is no change without a genetic mutation. Sometimes during reproduction there is a genetic mutation. This mutation can create a trait that can be adaptive (beneficial) in one environment and maladaptive (detrimental) in another environment. Adaptive mutations give the animal an advantage that promotes survival. For example, having a nose above our mouths enables us to smell whether food is rancid and thus, could cause us to get sick. Proximate causes, or the how mechanisms that bring about the behavior.