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Evolutionary Psychology
Evolved to Rock
Understanding Questionable Authorities - the all-professor rock band
Posted January 22, 2015
By day, we are academics - tenured PhDs working for the state university. A microbiologist - armed with a microscope and some slides, a research psychologist - always willing to discuss the nature of statistical analyses, and three sociologists - whose passion lies in advancing our understanding of progressive social movements. We stand in front of podiums, write dense papers, attend committee meetings, and have extensive discussions with “colleagues” about “deep intellectual issues.”
By night, we are Questionable Authorities - the Hudson Valley’s premier all-professor rock band - playing packed bars in a college town - filled with beverages, loudness, and mayhem. In our 10+ years together as a band, here are some of our “achievements”:
- We created a punked out, Dead-Kennedy’s version of our university’s alma mater (performed once in front of the university president at a commencement celebration),
- Packed the house at Snugs, Bacchus, McGillicuddy’s, Cabs, Oasis, and a number of other locally famous venues,
and we even have
- Played on campus at a revived Belle Arts Ball - decked out in full 1970s KISS attire
Bouncers have been involved in crowd control at Questionable Authorities shows on multiple occasions - and one time a guy who looked just like Charles Manson rushed the stage in a drunken stupor.
What the heck are we doing?!
Well, like I said, in our day jobs, we are academics - so thinking about why things happen - and writing up the best answers we’ve got - is our livelihood. So here’s an effort at trying to explain what the heck we are doing!
I’m an evolutionary psychologist (see Geher, 2014), so I tend to look to our ancestral past and to our understanding of evolutionary forces to help us explain pretty much any human-related phenomenon.
So, for instance, we can ask this simple question: Why Rock Music?
From an evolutionary perspective, anything that would have taken away time from our ancestors’ ability to survive and/or reproduce on the African savanna would have had a hard time evolving and making it into our phenotype (or what we look like and how we behave). This is because evolution is an energy-efficient, naturally created process that unintentionally selects for features of organisms that facilitate reproductive success.
So from an evolutionary perspective, human universals that do not clearly lead to survival and/or reproduction are, well, a bit complicated to explain (see Geher & Kaufman, 2013)! And music seems like exactly this kind of useless activity that doesn’t make sense on the surface from an evolutionary perspective.
This said, one of the great advances in modern evolutionary psychology pertains to Miller’s (2000) fitness indicator theory, which suggests that several important aspects of human behavior evolved primarily for the purpose of conspicuously displaying costly signals - conspicuously displaying things about oneself that (a) are impressive to others, (b) that are hard to fake, and (c) that demonstrate something kind of special about an individual - these are all beneficial features in mates and other social partners. Thus, from Miller’s perspective, the answer to “why does human art exist universally” is this: Art evolved as a mechanism for individuals to conspicuously display qualities that are beneficial in relationship partners.
In pursuing this line of thought, Miller argues that good artists demonstrate such abilities as conspicuous creativity (the ability to come up with novel ideas, paintings, guitar riffs, etc.) that make others think or feel strong emotions (think Jimmy Page’s famous solo in Stairway to Heaven). He also argues that good artists demonstrate conspicuous precision, or the ability to replicate something that is recognizable consistently and effectively to an audience (e.g., think of a concert pianist whose rendition of Beethoven’s fifth sounds exactly as Ludgwig would have played it himself). And good artists may display social synchrony. Synchronized swimming is an impressive art form because we are like “wow, these people are all doing something amazing and all at the same time - and it looks cool!” When the Alllman Brothers are playing One Way Out, they will seem to be in the middle of a random jam and then all of a sudden all instruments will converge on a powerful set of notes - only to lead to a synchronized build-up to the chorus. This is cool when they do that! This is why the Allmans are awesome!
And, according to Miller, these abilities are all qualities that are markers of impressive and good social partners - and so music largely evolved as a forum for displaying such features of individuals in a social species such as ours.
Do these evolution-based explanations help explain why five perfectly reasonable PhDs rock out on the weekend with songs like “Bad Reputation,” “Blister in the Sun,” “Add it Up,” and “American Idiot?” Are we unconsciously striving to display such conspicuous qualities to others? Heck, I don’t know - but that’s the idea from the “fitness display” corner of evolutionary psychology!
Of course, maybe we just do it because (cover your ears all you academic deans and provosts out there …) it beats our day jobs and we get to pretend to be rock stars! Well, I have to tell you, whatever the underlying causes for why Questionable Authorities exists, I’m glad we do!
But if you’re interested in some great sociological explanations to help you understand the existence of Questionable Authorities even better, then I strongly recommend that you read this article by our Sociologist / Drummer, Peter "Sticks" Kaufman (who writes for Norton’s renowned Everyday Sociology blog series). Sticks can deconstruct social reality like nobody's business!
And what’s that? You say you really just have to see us in action? Well you’re in luck! Here is a youtube link of us playing our punked out version of the SUNY New Paltz Alma Mater to the tune of the Dead Kennedy’s “Holiday in Cambodia.”
Oh, and you want to find out how you can get more information on the Hudson Valley’s premier all-professor rock band? Good news - we’re on Facebook!
Well, I’d write more, but my lecture for next week’s class isn’t going to write itself, now is it!? ...
Long Live Rock and Roll!
References
Geher, G. (2014). Evolutionary Psychology 101. New York: Springer.
Miller G. F. (2000). The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature, London, Heineman.
