New research explains why some societies show off wealth while others hide it

Showing off wealth can bring greater prestige, but it can also attract envy. In some societies, visible wealth is celebrated and people gain status through conspicuous consumption. In others, envy tends to dominate and wealth is often concealed.

The paper ‘Show off or hide it? Property rights and status competition shape wealth display, evil eye beliefs, and egalitarian norms’, led by LSE’s Dr Eric Schnell and Professor Michael Muthukrishna and published in Evolution and Human Behavior, argues that these different approaches to wealth can be explained by two features that vary between societies. These are the strength of status competition, or how much it matters to be better off than others, and the strength of property rights, or how difficult it is for others to steal, damage, sabotage or otherwise harm someone’s wealth.

The researchers develop an economic model that predicts three societal outcomes:

• When property rights are very weak and status competition is strong, visible success can invite destruction. This leads to compressed consumption, low production and strong levelling norms, patterns consistent with many hunter-gatherer societies.
• When property rights are moderate, people may still conceal wealth to avoid envy and harm. The authors suggest that evil eye beliefs may function as culturally evolved norms that encourage this kind of wealth concealment.
• When property rights are strong, displaying wealth becomes safer. In these conditions, competition is more likely to drive increased production and conspicuous consumption, especially when status competition is intense.

The framework brings together phenomena that are often studied separately, including hunter-gatherer egalitarianism, evil eye beliefs and conspicuous consumption. It suggests that these behaviours may be different responses to the same underlying challenge: whether to display success in societies where standing out can also make people a target.

Professor Muthukrishna said: "Our model explains several patterns usually treated as separate puzzles. The famous equality of hunter-gatherer societies is a specific adaptation to limited resources and essentially non-existent property rights rather than a default human state as some assume. Evil eye beliefs, the widespread belief in many countries that people’s envy can harm you, is an adaptation to limited resources and weak property rights. And even when property rights are strong, very high levels of redistribution can reduce productivity. These are all cultural adaptations to different economic circumstances."

Schnell, E., Schimmelpfennig, R., Li, X., & Muthukrishna, M. (2026). Show off or hide it? Property rights and status competition shape wealth display, evil eye beliefs, and egalitarian norms. Evolution and Human Behavior, 47, 106961. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2026.106961