Supernormal stimulus: what it is, characteristics and examples

Supernormal stimuli are a phenomenon studied in biology and psychology: let's see what they are like.

Evolutionarily, human beings and other organisms tend to give a specific response to certain stimuli.

But sometimes we find stimuli that generate responses that are not entirely justified. We are going to know why this phenomenon known as supernormal stimulus happens, what are the underlying causes and what are the consequences.What are the underlying causes and also discover some examples that help us to understand this curious phenomenon.

What is a supernormal stimulus?

Supernormal stimuli, also called superstimuli or supranormal stimuli, is a specific type of stimulus that exceeds the normal stimulus. a specific type of stimulus that exaggerates the qualities of other stimuli, thus causing the perceiving organism to emit a much stronger response. than to those normal stimuli.

Evolutionarily, the person has learned to emit this response to normal stimuli, but the supranormal ones take advantage of this to achieve a more powerful version of it. This phenomenon mainly affects issues pertaining to the fields of psychology and biology. However, examples of supernormal stimuli can also be found in certain sociological and even artistic aspects.

The explanation behind this phenomenon could come, according to experts, from a process of selective pressure. It would be an evolutionary mechanism by which an individual of a species would begin to show examples of supernormal stimuli in order to obtain a response before others.to obtain a response before other individuals**, whose stimuli were more moderate and therefore could not win this small competition.

In this sense, we would find some showy attributes in certain animals, such as the peacock's tail, which instead of helping it to fly, its function is to attract the attention of females in order to be chosen for reproduction, so that the genes of that particular individual are passed on to the next generation. In this case, the size and color of the tail feathers would represent the supernormal stimulus.

Examples of this phenomenon

We have seen that there can be examples of supernormal stimuli in a variety of fields. Therefore, let us review the most important ones in order to better understand how this phenomenon works.

1. In the field of biology and ethology.

The example of the peacock's tail is one of the many cases of supernormal stimuli that we can find at the Biological level. But But there are experiments in which researchers have artificially created this type of stimuli.. A particularly interesting one was carried out by the Dutch ornithologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and his collaborators, studying the case of European herring gull chicks.

The young of this type of bird respond actively to red marks on their parents' beaks, pecking at them for regurgitated food. Tinbergen set up an experiment in which one group of chicks was presented with the normal situation with the adult, others were placed in front of an artificial head, with the same markings as the real ones, and another was placed next to the figure of a beak, without anything else.

But there was a final group of chicks who were not in front of any apparently organic form. These were placed next to a red-toned stick with white markings. That is, the red color distribution that elicited their natural pecking response was exaggerated. Which group showed a higher response rate? It wasn't the ones with the beak, or the ones with the fake head, or even the ones in the natural situation.

It was the chicks in front of the red stick that were shown to be perceiving a supernormal stimulus.. Therefore, it was this group that most often pecked at the stick in the hope of receiving the food they so desired, and they did so without being in a normal situation next to the adult birds that were supposed to provide them with food in a real environment.

This is not the only example. Another test was done, in this case with songbirds, whose eggs are bluish in color, speckled with gray spots. The scientists took a group of these birds and placed them next to deep blue figures and dark markings, in addition to their eggs, and the birds preferred to climb on the figure, a clear sign that they were responding to the supernormal stimulus they represented.

In addition, there are cases of species that have evolved to exert supernormal stimuli on other species and thus take advantage of their disproportionate response.. This is the case of cuckoos, a type of bird that falls into the category of brood parasites, since it makes members of another species (hosts) believe that they are actually members of its offspring in order to be fed.

How does it do this? Through calls and behaviors that are similar, for example, to those of warblers, but much more exaggerated, thus managing to capture the response of adults over their own offspring. That is, they would be generating a supranormal stimulus to benefit from the automatic response of these birds, which would prefer to feed them rather than their own offspring.

2. In the field of psychology

But supernormal stimuli are not just a matter of biology, as we have already seen. In the field of psychology, i.e. human behavior, there are also clear examples of this phenomenon. One of them could be one of them could be the one perceived through junk food, food that generates a great appetite because of its appearance and taste, but that in reality, at a nutritional level, are terrible for our organism.but which are actually terrible for our organism at a nutritional level.

At an evolutionary level, it has a very logical explanation. The human being, obviously, has not always lived in the civilization we know now, in fact this represents the least time since the existence of the species. Instead, biologically we are adapted to the times when we were hunters and gatherers. At that time it was not so easy to provide food for the tribe, let alone sugars and fats, so succulent.

But today it is extremely easy to get hold of such substances. That is where junk food comes in: extremely palatable components, very easy to obtain in every way (economically and geographically). Hence its unstoppable success, even though health professionals warn of the risks of its consumption.. And the fact is that the response to the supernormal stimulus often outweighs reasoning.

Of course, sex was not going to be an exception, and we can see clear examples in people who resort to cosmetic surgery to modify and increase their sexual attributes, thus managing to obtain supernormal stimuli that will generate responses in other individuals ahead of other less striking stimuli.

Human behavior also responds to supernormal stimuli in other areas, such as heart programs, in which visceral reactions are sought to keep the viewer hooked to the screen.

The same is true of social networks, which offer the user a content that automatically hooks him and generates response after response, because he has found exaggerated stimuli that satisfy him and do not let him escape.The user has found exaggerated stimuli that satisfy him and do not let him escape, or rather he does not want to escape, because the rest of the stimuli, normal, do not attract him as much as those.

3. In the field of art

Returning to the subject of sexuality, but this time within the field of art, we can find examples of supernormal stimulus, for example in the figures of the famous Venus, feminine sculptures where the attributes and curves are clearly exaggeratedin order to provoke a response to height.

In addition to these figures, we can also observe pictorial works in which the painters deliberately decided to exaggerate the size of the lips or eyes, in order to generate a greater attractiveness in the people who were watching the painting. Therefore, they created supernormal stimuli to generate greater interest in their works.

Even in audiovisual content we can easily observe how both physical and social qualities are exaggerated in the characters played by some actors and actresses, so that they generate a great response in viewers and thus want to continue watching that particular content to the detriment of others.

It can also be observed even without the need for images, for example, in novels. Sometimes the plots of some volumes sometimes take clichés to the extreme, exaggerating features, e.g. of a romantic nature, looking for an emotional response in the reader., seeking an emotional response in the reader who responds, no doubt, to a supernormal stimulus and which, on the other hand, if the text were more realistic, would probably not take place.

Bibliographical references:

• Doyle, J.F., Pazhoohi, F. (2012). Natural and augmented breasts: Is what is not natural most attractive?. Human Ethology Bulletin.
• Barrett, D. (2007). Waistland: A (R) evolutionary view of our weight and fitness crisis. WW Norton & Company.
• Burkhardt, R.W. (2005). Patterns of behavior: Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the founding of ethology. The University of Chicago Press.
• Grim, T., Honza, M. (2001). Does supernormal stimulus influence parental behaviour of the cuckoo's host? Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
• Tinbergen, N. (1951). The Study of Instinct. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
• Tinbergen, N. (1953). The herring gull's world; a study of the social behaviour of birds. London: Collins.