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pwno comments on The strongest status signals - Less Wrong
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You're confusing a low status move that makes you more likable with a high status move.
The dictator is implying the citizens have something he wants when he bothers to talk to them. Don't even consider yet the consequences of such an action. Just realize he's making a move that reliably signals that the citizens have some power over him.
We tend to like people who lower their status to us and raise our own; especially if they're coming from a high status position. So it could be that the status gained from people liking Obama for chatting with them is greater than the status lost from chatting with them. But this doesn't change the fact that, on it's own, chatting with people is status lowering.
So you no longer believe that status signals of interaction are "The strongest status signals"?
Do you mean:
If that's the question, then no. Whether or not the reactive move of talking to the citizens ultimately led to Obama's rise in status is not relevant. The citizens being reactive by liking him more is the indicator that his status is raised, not him chatting with them.
No, I meant what I said. In case it was too subtle, I was pointing out that you are shifting the goal posts, quietly backing off from your original strong claim as if you had never made it.
Your concept of "reactivity" seems about as useful as phlogiston. It can explain anything in retrospect. "The citizens being reactive by liking him" is nearly defining reactivity as assigning status to, weakly cloaked by the intermediary of "liking him". Yes, assignment of status is a strong indicator of assignment of status. But that is a tautology, not a useful theory about the particular world we live in.
It is misuse of the concept that seems to be the problem here more so than the concept itself. I'm not sure about 'strongest' but being nonreactive, particularly not making reactions that are extreme or reveal emotion, is an obvious status signal. As a concept it may be somewhat clearer than the related 'insecure' label that is often used as both a description and an attack.
This is really a large part of my point. I think the misuse of the concept is the result of trying to prove that it is stronger than it actually is. I agree that, if defined more clearly, there may be status signals associated with reactivity, but these would not, in general, be strong than other types of status signals.