It more often helps to apply?

What does "it" mean in " It more often helps to apply..."?

Context:

PEOPLE have radically diverse responses to the very idea of conspicuous consumption. Some folks consider it blindingly obvious that most economic behaviour is driven by status seeking, social signalling and sexual solicitation. These include most Marxists, marketers, working-class fundamentalists and divorced women. Other folks consider this an outrageously cynical view, and argue that most consumption is for individual pleasure ("utility") and family prosperity ("security"). Those folks include most capitalists, economists, upper-class fundamentalists, and soon-to-be-divorced men.

Such differences of opinion can rarely be resolved by trading examples or anecdotes, or arguing from first principles. It more often helps to apply some psychology. With this in mind, some colleagues and I devised a series of experiments inspired by "costly signalling theory" - the idea that animals, including humans, use costly, intricate and hard-to-fake signals to flaunt their biological fitness to potential mates and social partners. Our goal was to see how thinking about mating influences people's decisions about spending and giving (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 93, p 85).