The other day, someone did something I didn't expect. It was something many people have done before; something that I thought of as very normal, but that I in no way understood and had not predicted.
As I said, this had happened many time before, so I wrote it off as "me not understanding people" or "people are weird" for a second, like I usually do, before realizing that "bad at" really means "lacking basic knowledge", which I had never realized before.
And then I thought "I should ask someone who is different from me why people do that, and eventually someone will have an answer."
But many people will have many more questions like this. So, what have you observed people doing time and time again, but never understood? Or something that you only understood after a long time or asking someone about it?
And can Less Wrong tell us, not necessarily why (I for one can make up evolutionary psychology fairy tales all day if I want) but what conscious thought process occurs behind these events?
I work for a fashion company, marketing high-end designer goods to both men and women, and can assure you the phenomenon your friend is describing is very real.
On the broader subject of cruelty, I think you're on the right lines with insecurity, but that's still not an answer. Why do people experience insecurity (i.e. why do feelings of insecurity exist in human beings)?
Humans are exquisitely sensitive to tribal status for fairly obvious reasons. This is why pretty much all human interactions have an element of status game about them.