Signaling Theory: An Important Concept to Understand
Signaling Theory is an idea that springs from Evolutionary Psychology that posits people give off signals that demonstrate their fitness, which are perceived by other people. In essence, it’s a means of communicating information that’s useful for survival and reproduction. Here’s a pretty good summary. And another good summary from a different source.
For our purposes, we’ll consider Signalling Theory with respect to social interactions. You give off a whole bunch of signals that others receive and interpret, and those signals tell them a great deal of information about you. In essence, the signals you give off tell others the story of who you are.
Honest and Dishonest Signals
Those signals can be honest or dishonest. Honest signals accurately relay accurate information. Dishonest signals attempt to deceive the person receiving the signal.
An example - this is the difference between a dude wearing a real Rolex versus a cheap knock-off Rolex he bought from a street vendor down by the docks. The first example indicates the guy has enough disposable income to piss away on a $10,000 watch. That’s an honest signal of his income. The second example is an attempt to convince others he has the same disposable income as the other dude.
A second example: padded bras versus regular bras. Women wear padded bras in an attempt to make their breasts appear bigger, ergo making themselves look more desirable to men and evoke envy in women (assuming they’re straight.)
A big part of the self-improvement process I’ll discuss in the Project involves developing ourselves so we can honestly signal information to other people. Interestingly, the more we develop our honest signals, the better we get at recognizing other people’s dishonest signals, which is a major aspect of developing the ability to “read” others.” In many cases, the difference between honest and dishonest signals is a matter of confidence.
An example of this phenomenon occurs when two dudes are about to engage in a conflict of some sort. Let’s say they’re about to fight in da streetz because one dude looked at the other dude in a “disrespectful” way. You can always determine which person is likely going to win because they’re a more skilled fighter by the signals they’re exhibiting. The louder and more animated person is likely going to lose.
Why?
The louder person does not have confidence in their skills, so they’re attempting to send an honest signal that they’re going to kick the other guy’s ass so they can avoid the fight. The problem is their signal is easily recognized as a dishonest signal by the more skilled fighter because he’s trained enough to know skilled fighters don’t carry on like flailing chickens with their heads cut off. He’s calm because he has confidence in his own skills based on demonstrated competence in fighting, and he’s calm because he recognizes his opponent’s dishonest signal. That’s the dance that is Signaling Theory.
It’s the same dance that allows women (or men) to spot that fake Rolex a mile away, and it’s the same dance that allows men (or women) to spot the padded bra as soon as they watch the woman walk.
The Cost of the Signal Matters
In general, the more “expensive” the signal in time, money, or effort, the more valuable it is because it’s harder to fake. This is part of the reason rich people buy ridiculously expensive shit. It’s not that it’s exponentially better than less-costly shit. They buy it because it signals they have the resources to spend copious amounts of cash on random shit. We call this “conspicuous overconsumption.” Importantly, it’s extremely difficult to fake, so it’s a more reliably-honest signal.
Generally, the more signals we’re exposed to, the harder (more expensive) it gets to send out dishonest signals, the more accurate of a picture we get. In other words, the more we get to know people, the better we get at detecting their dishonest signals.
A few years back, I was working at a school in Southern California. A parent rolled up in a brand new, shiny Cadillac Escalade. When she got out of the stupidly-over-priced Chevy Tahoe, she was dressed to the nines in designer clothing, and carrying a gaudy handbag. An annoyingly-braggy teacher colleague whose husband was a successful plastic surgeon noted the handbag was a genuine something or someone, and it retailed for about $8,000. Why was she at school? She was there to sign her kid up for free lunches, which means her income was about 20% below the poverty level. Later, I found out they lived in a shitty, dilapidated single-wide in a trailer park known for an exceptionally high percentage of crackheads.
The Goal of Real Self-Improvement
Real self-improvement involves actually becoming a better person in every dimension of your life. By the end of this Project, we won’t have a need to send out dishonest signals because we’ll have everything we want and need by simply being ourselves. Our best selves.
~Jason
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