ABSTRACT
Individuals succumb to countless consumption behaviors that potentially yield destructive outcomes (e.g., consuming a high-fat diet). As such, consumer researchers have much to offer in terms of the development of efficacious public service announcements meant to curtail such behaviors. That said, a complete and accurate understanding of these destructive behavioral patterns would be difficult to achieve without an explicit recognition of the innate mechanisms and motives driving such behaviors. Because most “dark-side” consumption patterns can be linked to one or more of the seven deadly sins, I begin this chapter by demonstrating the Darwinian etiology of these sins. This is followed by a brief introduction of Darwinian medicine and evolutionary-based health promotion. Subsequently, I explore five specific dark-side consumption behaviors and demonstrate how in each case, a full understanding of the phenomenon in question will require that both proximate and ultimate causes be addressed.
