Evolutionary theory helps explain Big Brother’s logic – 02/17/2024 – Reinaldo José Lopes

Even the worst detractors of Big Brother Brasil, if they are a little curious about how people’s minds work, must ask themselves why the program continues to be shown with a considerable degree of success for more than two decades. Responding that many people apparently have an inexhaustible appetite for crap television may be true, but it doesn’t clarify much. Trying to put aside the strong emotions, coming from both furious “haters” and die-hard fans, I make a modest proposal here: the truth is that Darwin explains it.

The point is that most of the show’s appeal derives directly from aspects of human psychology shaped by our evolutionary history. In fact, strictly speaking, what I just said is somewhat tautological: all the basic aspects of our psychology were, to some extent, influenced by our evolution, simply because we did not fall ready-made from the sky, but we are, in essence, a kind of African great ape.

On the one hand, of course, many people find the opportunity to “peek” into other people’s lives 24 hours a day irresistible. And this fits quite well with ideas like those of British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who has already estimated that around two-thirds of human conversations correspond to social matters – or, less politely, consist of talking about other people’s lives.

Playing like Mrs. Fifi and keeping an eye on what the neighbors are up to is certainly rude, but this type of monitoring was essential in small-scale societies like those that existed in our past. In them, the only source of information about who was trustworthy and who was a cheat was the popular word of mouth. In the face of “brothers”, we are just repeating this instinct.

I find it much more interesting, however, to use the Darwinian prism to see the mechanics that happen inside the “most watched house in Brazil” (I promise that this is the last BBB-cliché that will appear in this text). For example: serious-looking people often ridicule the oaths of love or friendship and eternal loyalty made by the participants. “For God’s sake, these people have only known each other for two weeks!”, say these know-it-alls.

It turns out, however, that social psychology experiments have already shown that producing this identification with a group is the easiest thing in the world. Just flip a coin, or give people different colored flags, and they will almost instantly start to feel part of a new social circle. In the context of BBB, it is clear that isolation helps to reinforce this process: “if there isn’t you, go yourself” as a best friend or great passion. Again, it is a sign that we are programmed to belong to the group we are in.

Furthermore, the (comparatively) more recent editions of the program, with subdivisions such as “Camarote” and “Pipoca”, are designed to reinforce this dynamic of self-identification with antagonistic groups, even more so considering that one of the groups has famous people (there are mental quotation marks in the adjective), while the other is that of anonymous.

A last, especially dirty element is the dynamics of alliances and votes for Paredão. It is worth noting how implicit mechanisms emerge regarding the extent to which it is correct to ally with certain participants and encourage others to vote – self-defense, in general, is seen as a valid motivation to vote for someone, while recurring persecution to take someone out of the game often turns against the articulator of this type of conspiracy.

In other words, even in such a seemingly frivolous game, the most common reflex is to give actions a moral framework, based on what would be “fair” or “unfair” in human relationships outside the BBB house. In the context of competition, this may sound hypocritical, but these impulses are indispensable for our group life in the real world.

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