4 ms·

I wonder why we evolved to feel silly. You'd think the safety aspect of looking silly would outweigh the social aspect of doing things that cause mocking in oth

• jplayer01 8y ago
  We evolved to overvalue the opinion of our peers. Back when we lived in tribes of 20-50, it was incredibly important to fit in and be accepted. It's maladaptive when the same mechanism is at work when doing something modern that is silly on an individual social level but incredibly important/beneficial on a rational one.
• carlmr 8y ago
  The people that did a lot of silly looking things probably had a harder time finding partners for reproduction. So for something like safety with silliness to reproduce it would need a significant impact on our chance to survive. Looking at it this way workplace safety barely mattered until very recently. Before the big killers were the lack of food and vaccinations. It's only since society became as safe as it is today, that these smaller safety goals even seem to matter.
• sangnoir 8y ago
  > I wonder why we evolved to feel silly. I'm going to guess it's because you are doing something unexpected/unusual. Predictability of action is a great thing for social cohesion and safety. Actions that result in one feeling silly might be misinterpreted (are you being aggressive, did you get rabies, or otherwise lost your mind?)