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This Is Your Brain on Disney


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Humans have large brains, which are really expensive to produce. Researchers have not yet determined why our brains are so large, but everything from diet to climate change to social competition to changes in gestation has been proposed. Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist, suggested that big brains are a result of sexual selection. He argues that the brain is “an entertainment system that evolved to stimulate other brains” in an effort to attract mates (2). Miller’s “mating mind hypothesis” states


These “courtship tools” are meant to attract sexual partners. However, Miller’s hypothesis is not supported by the actual development of the human brain, which does not display the characteristics of a sexually selected trait. Two of the the major points of divergence that researchers Palmer and Coe discuss are the lack of sexual dimorphism and the actual growth of the brain. Male brains do not significantly differ from female brains:


And if the brain were a sexually selected feature, it would become more prominent after puberty. This isn’t the case: The human brain weighs about 25% of its adult weight at birth, and it doubles in weight in about 6 months. At puberty, there isn’t another of these types of gains. The brain completes most of its development within the first few years of life.

As an alternative to understanding why specific forms of entertainment are so appealing, Palmer and Coe instead suggest they reflect parenting strategies to influence the behavior of offspring. The “parenting mind hypothesis” proposes that the size of the human brain developed via natural selection in response to parental ability to influence behavior—big brains allowed offspring to store and replicate behaviors modeled by parents that enabled survival and reproduction (5). This latter hypothesis takes into account one possible reason why children develop language skills so early in life: language helps them receive information from their parents, which increases their fitness for survival.




One of the things I wish this paper had discussed a bit more was the connection between relationship building and the traits linked to the Disney experience. Art, creativity, storytelling, humor, wit, music, fantasy, and morality may be important elements in the relationships we develop and maintain—not in a sexual sense, but in terms of network building. The researchers touch upon this briefly in their conclusion, and it seems to warrant exploration because it has broad implications in terms of how our social networks are engaged with these traits. When we experience an instance of storytelling or humor or music with someone else, we’re creating a bond through that experience that helps define our places within our network relative to each other. Revisiting these experiences could then be an act of reaffirming ties—which could help us understand why people return to Disney theme parks and other forms of creative entertainment.

Note: This post was pulled from the AiP archives–a version of this post appeared on on March 8th, 2011.





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  1. 1. nicholasjh1 3:29 pm 02/1/2013

    …. There is no growth of the brain from puberty, but there is a huge change to the brain – in rewiring and configuration. At this stage of life the brain prunes unneeded connections making it more efficient. I’m not sure if there is differentiation at this point, but the impetus for these changes are the hormonal surges of puberty. I think it’s a little heavy handed to say Brain’s can’t be sexually selected because of no growth… the big size could be a set up for the changes set forth in puberty.

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  2. 2. jtdwyer 9:59 pm 02/1/2013

    Yes, while there may be little difference between the genders in “art, creativity, storytelling, humour, wit, music, fantasy, and morality”, there do seem to be strong differences in math, abstract and spatial reasoning, etc.
    As I recall, these differences are hotly contested battlegrounds of the nature vs. nurture debate, but isn’t there evidence that female abilities in these areas actually decrease at puberty?

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  3. 3. jtdwyer 10:03 pm 02/1/2013

    Sorry – I should have also mentioned language skills, in which I think females tend to excel…

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  4. 4. sjfone 6:49 pm 02/2/2013

    To the great unwashed the whole comparison is a stretch.
    What’s next- bonding in Vegas?

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