>>2067228In Miller's 2009 book Spent: Sex, Evolution and the Secrets of Consumerism, he has used Darwinism to gain an understanding of consumerism and how marketing has exploited our inherited instincts to display social status for reproductive advantage.[12] Miller argues that in the modern marketing-dominated culture, "coolness" at the conscious level, and the consumption choices it drives, is an aberration of the genetic legacy of two million years of living in small groups, where social status has been a critical force in reproduction. Miller's thesis is that marketing persuades people — particularly the young — that the most effective way to display that status is through consumption choices, rather than conveying such traits as intelligence and personality through more natural means of communication, such as simple conversation.[13]
Miller argues that marketing limits its own success by using simplistic models of human nature, lacking the insights of evolutionary psychology and behavioural ecology, with a belief "that premium products are bought to display wealth, status, and taste, and they miss the deeper mental traits that people are actually wired to display, traits such as kindness, intelligence, and creativity" which limits the success of marketing.[14]
