mattnewport comments on Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong
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Some very intelligent people also wear T-shirts instead of suits. Nevertheless, it would be preposterous to deny that wearing a suit is a meaningful status signal, or to claim that clothing is a "really poor indicator of status".
Signaling mechanisms aren't perfect, and yet they're still signaling mechanisms anyway.
In engineering / software circles, wearing a T-shirt rather than a suit is a kind of countersignaling.
Indeed; and no doubt linguistic countersignaling also occurs in some communities. (Example: politicians.)