Question

Stop us before we shop again Why we do compulsively shop — and how can we stop? Geoffrey Miller, the subject of my Findings column, has offered to answer questions from Lab readers about our obsessions for brand names and about what he calls the fundamental consumerist delusion: that people will treat us differently if we buy the right stuff. Dr. Miller has some ideas (and an exercise I’ll get to shortly) to tame the passions of brand-obsessed consumers, but he’s not a dour ascetic. He doesn’t denounce evil corporations for seducing customers, or denounce the vapidity of people who buy things he can’t afford himself on a professor’s salary. Dr. Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, sees much of our consuming as the result of the impulse (often unconscious) to send “costly signals” to others of our intelligence and of the other Big Five personality traits — the signs of fitness that will make us more appealing to prospective mates and allies. People have always displayed fitness by one means or another, and Dr. Miller says that, by historical standards, splurging on iPhones or Viking ranges or BMWs isn’t so bad. “Consumerist capitalism is the least oppressive system of mass trait display ever developed,” Dr. Miller told me. “It’s much better than a militaristic dominance-based society or a theocracy or lots of other ways in which you basically display your intelligence and conscientiousness and disagreeableness by how efficiently you can oppress slaves or minority groups. But I think we can still do better.” Dr. Miller discusses some strategies for improvement in his new book, “Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior”. He argues that people displaying stuff isn’t an effective signal of fitness because it doesn’t persuade (or fool) the people who matter in your life — the people who talk to you, thereby getting a far better gauge of your personality and intelligence than anything that could be signaled by your possessions. He urges you to put shopping in perspective by performing the following exercise: List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists


9. O texto tem como objetivo principal:
a) relatar problemas enfrentados por uma pessoa compulsiva por compras;
b) descrever o desespero de um comprador compulsivo para livrar-se de sua obsessão; c) descrever o problema da compulsão por compras e sugerir um exercício de reflexão sobre como lidar com esse problema;
d) descrever experiências médicas bem-sucedidas realizadas pelo Dr. Geoffrey Miller;
e) tornar público o livro Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior, escrito pelo Dr. Geoffrey Miller.

Answer 1

Resposta:

e) tornar público o livro Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior, escrito pelo Dr. Geoffrey Miller.

Explicação:

O texto pode dar a entender a letra C, descrevendo um pouco sobre compulsão a comprar, mas o real intuito de todo o artigo é mostrar o trabalho do Dr. Miller e seu novo livro.