Supernormal Stimulus – Root Cause of Modern Day Habits

A supernormal stimulus or super stimulus (a term used by evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists) is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved. For example, Supernormal stimuli are the reason why we generally prefer the taste of unhealthy foods to healthy foods. Supernormal stimuli “hijack” our brain’s natural reward system so that we feel compelled to pursue and obtain them. This is all caused by our reward seeking hormone Dopamine released by brain.

As psychologist Susan Weinschenk explained in a 2009 article, the neurotransmitter dopamine does not cause people to experience pleasure, but rather causes a seeking behavior. “Dopamine causes us to want, desire, seek out, and search,” she wrote. It is the opioid system that causes one to feel pleasure. Yet, “the dopamine system is stronger than the opioid system,” she explained. “We seek more than we are satisfied.”

In the peak shift effect, animals sometimes respond more strongly to exaggerated versions of the training stimuli. This process mimics what the visual areas of the brain have evolved to do and more powerfully activates the same neural mechanisms that were originally activated by the original object.

Evolutionarily, animals displaying supernormal stimuli, and the organisms responding to the supernormal stimuli, rely on evolution and propagation of genetics, behavioral patterns, and other biological factors. Supernormal stimuli such as emphasized color, size, patterns, or shapes, are often successful because an organism that exhibits them will often be selected by an organism that favors it. This will ensure survival and increased reproductive fitness of current and latter generations.

Modern day examples of supernormal stimuli for humans are: junk food, the Internet, pornography, TV, social media, movies, fake news and video games.

Animals, including humans, are hardwired (i.e., genetically programmed) to respond to certain stimuli because they have a survival value in evolutionary terms. Supernormal stimuli, in essence, hijack the natural response tendency and cause animals to respond more strongly, and often preferentially, to the exaggerated stimuli. Importantly, supernormal stimuli tend to activate some of the same reward systems in the brain that are involved in addiction.

Junk foods, Refined and Processed foods, Sugary drinks

You might wonder why we are often drawn to junk food, such as potato chips, ice-creams, sweets etc., over natural foods like carrots, raw broccoli, apples, and raw nuts. Why do foods like doughnuts, pizza, soft drinks, french fries taste so darn good? In evolutionary terms, shouldn’t we prefer natural, healthier foods over fried, processed, fatty, sugary junk foods?

The answer lies in part with supernormal stimuli. We are naturally drawn to salt, sugar, and fat. In primitive days these are in short supply but are important to our survival. Sugar in foods like fruit provides a wonderful source of calories, nutrients, energy. So naturally we used to get excited and stimulated at the sight of a colorful, sweet, fragrant fruits and eat them.

The highly addictive nature of junk food is one of our generation’s great concerns—food is being engineered specifically to be more appealing than its natural counterparts.

Food is one of the toughest things to struggle with because it’s an absolute necessity—the problem with junk food is due to the fact that it is a “super stimulating” version of a natural reward we are supposed to pursue. Food addiction is the real deal, and a tough habit to break because the triggers are ever present.

Most of the foods in their natural format cannot be abused. Example : Try having a handful of Cocoa beans instead of a chocolate bar, try having bowl of fresh fruits instead of packaged fruit juice, try having a palm full of dry nuts instead of salted or caramelized nuts. You simply cannot overeat natural whole foods.

Food manufacturers have learned to capitalize on this natural tendency to be drawn to these foods. That’s why so many restaurants and grocery stores provide us with foods that are so high in salt, sugar, and fat. We are drawn to them, so we buy them. The companies get rich, and we get fat. Most of us would agree that fried foods, baked refined foods, sweets, pizzas are not good for us. Yet, we consume them anyway. One might think, from an evolutionary standpoint, we’d prefer carrots over potato chips. But clearly, as a society, we do not.

Technology – TV, Smartphones, Internet, Social Media, Video Games

We know that technology can have a grip on us such that we are constantly checking our phones, social media, texting, emailing, gaming, and so on. Many of the modern technologies offer services as exaggerated versions of stimuli to which we are evolutionarily drawn. Any technology media if misused or abused would turn into an addiction.

Let’s take social media as an example. In evolutionary terms, communicating with others and maintaining strong relationships are critically important for our survival. We are social creatures, and our very survival depends upon establishing and maintaining healthy relationships with others. Social media can be viewed as an exaggerated version of our biological need to establish and maintain social relationships.

Smartphone addiction may cause some users to elicit the signs of a behavioral addiction. Social media has been shown to make some people depressed—they see the highlight reel of others, and may feel worse about their own life. In spite of this, people can’t stop checking them, thinking that they might be missing out on something.

Probably the most controversial of all modern stimuli, pornography has been described as insidious in nature because it might skew the otherwise normal activity of sex. It’s been suggested that pornography messes up the “reward circuitry” in human sexuality—why bother trying to pursue and impress a potential mate if you can just go home and watch porn.

Then there are a lot of other examples in today’s world where we are being impacted by these supernormal versions of normal stimuli. Like the Fake News and forwards on social media, Conspiracy theory videos, Reality TV shows, Sensationalism in News channels, dramatization of violence and romance in movies and so on.

Niko Tinbergen, a Noble prize winner coined this term through his research, which discovered that experimenters could display an alternate target that attract an organism’s attention more so than the naturally occurring target. Tinbergen studied herring gulls, and found the chicks peck at the red spot located on their parent’s bill. The offspring targets the red spot due to the contrast of color (stimulus). They do this in order to receive food through regurgitation from the parent. Tinbergen and colleagues developed an experiment that presented different models to chicks and determined their pecking rates. They used different models including an adult herring gull’s natural head, a standard wooden model of its head, the bill only, and a red stick with smaller white markings on it.The pecking rate of the chicks were consistent with the natural head, standard head model, and the bill only model. The pecking rate of the chicks increased when presented with the stick model. This suggests that the chicks preferred the dramatic contrast of the red stick with the yellow markings, therefore the artificial stimulus of the stick model was favored over the basic herring gull head and bill models, proving that the artificial stimuli was favored over the naturally occurring stimuli. Following his extensive analysis of the stimulus features that elicited food-begging in the chick of the herring gull, constructed an artificial stimulus consisting of a red knitting needle with three white bands painted around it; this elicited a stronger response than an accurate three-dimensional model of the parent’s head (white) and bill (yellow with a red spot).

So , What’s the take-away now?

Every generation has its own challenges to deal with. Humans are amazing adaptive machines and that’s the reason why we survived for so long by constructively using all the inventions and discoveries. With any discovery, invention and technological advancement we faced with initial turbulence and uncertainty. It takes some time to come to terms with the newness. Majority of humanity is capable to handle the progress we make in various areas of life and shrewd enough to make use of the privileges productively for greater good. However, few people do succumb to these things and self-sabotage knowingly or unknowingly.
Any advancement we make can be abused or can be used for betterment. Choice and decision is in our hands to utilize the modern day amenities to serve our best interests.
Enjoying everything in moderation is the key. We need to be conscious that these activities do not turn into addictions that could harm us mentally or physically.
From to time to time, it is recommended to stay away from all these supernormal stimuli on our lives. By doing this we would realize our ability to resist the temptations. This builds self-confidence, self-control, courage, mental strength, patience to be in control of our thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
We need to constantly strive to employ our self-control and self-restraint to be in control of our sense and not to be dominated by the external forces.