Teach you how to fight wits against rivals in love
One weekend night, you want to subscribe to a magazine on a whim. You find that the digital version costs 400 yuan, and the print version costs 750 yuan. The electronic version is cheap, and the print version has a good texture. You've always liked the texture of the publication in your hand, but 350 yuan can eat several delicious meals. What would you do?
A third party acting as bait
Although many people understand that rational thinking is essential to making the right decision, unfortunately, reason does not always prevail. While you are still torn about which version to order, you see the option to "subscribe to the gift package" next to you - both print and electronic subscriptions cost 750 yuan! At this time, you are likely to place an order to take the gift package directly, with the thought that this is equivalent to giving away the electronic version for free!
You may not realize that you have hit the nail on the head until you happily remit the money. There are many people who don't ask for a single print version at all (but there may be people who take advantage of it). Such a case is a classic decoyeffect: in such a situation, the disliked print-only version is only used to stimulate people's choice of "bait" and make people more likely to buy the gift package. Naive consumers are thus flipped by the "irrational" switch of the cunning merchant.
Outside of the mall, our irrational behavior is probably more often manifested in love. In the eyes of humans who boast of being higher animals, love is of course not just for reproduction, and of course it cannot be calculated by reason alone. Of course, the dog blood story of "who didn't fall in love with a few scumbags when they were young" has become commonplace.
The bait effect, other animals take the bait too
This is not the case with animals that "reproduce more than the sky". In the existing theory of sexual selection, it is believed that animals' mate selection should conform to the rational choice model - whoever has more attractive traits will be chosen for sex - intuitively, right? But a study in the latest issue of the journal Science [1] found that animals can also be troubled by irrational mate selection and "wrong love" for less good objects.
This time, Amanda M. Lea of the University of Texas and her colleagues took aim at an animal called the Physalaemuspustulosus, and what they did... was, simply put, seduce a female toad.
In the group of South American Bubble Toads, in order to reproduce. Males must attract female toads by singing. Female toads choose their own "Ruyi Lang Jun" according to their preference for male calls. This "aesthetic" of calls is more consistent in South American Bubble Toads: Generally speaking, female toads prefer sounds with a low, soothing tone and a faster rate of chirping. This sounds like a description of a horn played at 200bpm, but in reality, their sounds are like this:
Sounds more like a laser gun, right?
Based on this curious preference, the researchers set out to design a scheme that would effectively seduce female bubble toads. They designed three courtship sounds: A, with average timbre and medium rate; B, with relatively poor timbre and fast rate; and C, with the best timbre but the lowest rate. Forty female bubble toads then participated as judges in "Bubble Toad Good Voice" - they heard two courtship sounds at the same time and chose from them. It turned out that courtship sound B was more popular with females than A and C, while A was better than C.
So, what about feeling the pursuit of ABC three at the same time? Unexpectedly, the female bubble toads actually preferred the moderate A sound. In a follow-up experiment, the number of female bubble toads participating in the test doubled to 80, and the speaker playing the C sound was also moved to the ceiling to ensure that they could only choose between A and B. It stands to reason that the females should prefer the sound of B.
The result was still unexpected: A, which was clearly not as attractive as B, was still more popular.
Yes, you may have thought that in this situation, the C that no one appreciates has become the unsellable bait. These female bubble toads who listen to the sound and identify the object also have the bait effect and make irrational mate selection judgments.
The biological roots of irrationality
Unlike people shopping for clothes, mating and reproduction in animals is an important part of the genetic survival of individuals and populations. Every female frog wants to carry and pass on her genes as much as possible through healthy and high-quality individuals. Because of the huge differences in this sense, scientists are puzzled by the performance of the bubble toad: Why would the South American bubble toad make an irrational choice when it comes to such a major choice?
One possible explanation for this is that rational decision-making is a time-consuming and laborious solution in a complex courtship scenario where frogs are heard: female frogs face the risk of "aaaaah boyfriend being attacked first" and "wow wow wow bats are coming to eat me". This scenario-influenced mate selection criteria, while not economically rational, may be more suitable for their survival environment.
While the evolutionary significance of this "imperfect" decision-making mechanism remains to be seen, there is little doubt that hot-headed misselection is not unique to humans - the roots of biological irrationality may be far more profound than we think. Next time regret is up for a chop, you might consider this amphibian-inspired excuse to comfort yourself.
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