Guest post by Amy Yu and César A. Hidalgo, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Is fame superficial? Or can it be a signal of accomplishment?

In a world where many media outlets seem dominated by characters of inexplicable fame (such as the Kardashians), asking ourselves if our social reward systems are misfiring is both a fair question and a relevant one. The relevance of this question stems from the fact that humans are social learners – we are a species whose success depends on the ability of individuals to learn from others. But choosing whom to learn from, in a world populated by more people than we can meet, is not easy. To facilitate those choices, humans have evolved cognitive biases that nudge us to learn from those who demonstrate skill, accomplishments, and also, fame or prestige^[1]. Continue reading →