A chain of coffee shops near me put up a sign outside their establishments this fall that read, “Pumpkin is a feeling.” Some may read this and simply conclude that it is not true. Pumpkin is not a feeling. It’s a plant!
But when it comes to the pumpkin-flavored treats that are popular every fall, what matters most isn’t the presence or absence of that particular plant. The most important thing is evoke a feeling. Pumpkin puree is, of course, a key ingredient in many pumpkin-flavored treats, especially the iconic pumpkin pie. But when people want to evoke pumpkin pie, it’s often just as important that they add pumpkin pie spice, a mixture that includes nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, ginger and cloves. There’s a reason Starbucks doesn’t simply call their signature fall drink a “pumpkin latte,” but rather a Pumpkin Spice Latte. These spices evoke a series of feelings that people in our culture associate with pumpkin pie, and that they also associate with Thanksgiving and fall. And as pumpkin spice treats spread, this association between this spice mix and fall is strengthened.
As a result, the most noticeable feature of a “pumpkin-flavored” product may not be the presence of pumpkin at all. Instead, it’s about whether the flavors in the product evoke the right culturally constructed feeling!
If your only lens for understanding the world were botany, biology, or some other natural science, this might seem strange. Do people just make a mistake? Are they using the word “pumpkin” incorrectly?
But if you take the social sciences seriously, the actions and choices of consumers and producers can become understandable. This is because, as Nobel Prize winner in economics FA Hayek taught us: the facts of the social sciences is what people believe and think.
Hayek emphasizes that the social sciences are concerned with people, their choices and their relationships and interactions. This affects which features of an object are most relevant for identifying and analyzing it. Hayek asks: ‘Is it the physical characteristics of the objects – what we can discover about these objects by studying them – or should we classify the objects based on something else when we try to explain what people do with them ?’
To answer this question, Hayek considers “such things as tools, food, medicine, weapons, words, sentences, communication, and acts of production – or a specific example thereof.” He argues that these concepts do not refer to ‘some objective properties that things possess, or that the observer can discover about them, but to the beliefs that someone else has about things’. Instead, they are defined “defined only by indicating relationships among three terms: an end, a person who pursues that end, and an object that that person believes is an appropriate means to that end.” The operative word here is thinks. A person’s thoughts, beliefs, and goals are what defines something as an example of one of these social categories.
Every fall, many consumers act with purpose. We want the taste of pumpkin pie and the spices that go with it. We want the feelings, moods, vibrations and associations it evokes. And to achieve these ends, we buy products that we think and believe will have that taste. The physical properties of these products will vary. Some contain pumpkin puree, some do not. The pumpkin spice flavored Oreos I’m eating now don’t have “pumpkin” on the ingredient list. But their appearance and taste serve my purposes, and probably served the purposes of several other pumpkin spice lovers this fall. The physical characteristics of these cookies differ significantly from the various pumpkin-flavored coffee drinks people are purchasing this fall. But they serve complementary purposes and plans.
To understand the decisions consumers and producers made that led us here, you must consider the relevant facts. Not the facts of the natural sciences, but the facts of the social sciences. Not the facts of botany, but the relevant facts about what consumers and producers believe and think.
Nathan Goodman is a senior fellow in the FA Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His research interests include defense and peace economics, self-government, polycentricity, public choice, institutional analysis and Austrian economics.