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RobinHanson comments on Thoughts on status signals - Less Wrong
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Many signals are quite long lived, and can survive even when people are well and consciously aware of them. Wearing a business suit signals you are serious about business, for example, and a smile signals friendliness.
I think you're hitting a different, though related point. A business suit and a smile are probably not credible signals, though their absence is a credible signal of the opposite. it's easy to wear a business suit and fake a smile: each applicant to a job opening will likely come with both. Those that don't are almost instantaneously downgraded. It seems that the signal becomes a new baseline for behavior, and though it doesn't credibly signal anything, its absence signals something.
I'm not positive on the mechanism here: it's probably related to the fact that the signal is so low-cost, and that anyone failing to display it is either extremely low status, or signals some other defect.
I am trying to politely tell you that you have a lot to learn about signaling. Suits and smiles do credibly signal things. And the larger point is that the ability of a signal to work usually has little to do with how long it has been around or who knows that it is a signal.
"I am trying to politely tell you that you have a lot to learn about signaling." That's why I'm here :)
I think you bring up an interesting point here. I agreed with pwno that, once everyone is aware of a signal, it's no longer credible, especially if it's cheap. But I think you're right as well that for the signals you mentioned, it doesn't matter who knows that it's a signal or how long it's been around.
The distinction, I think, is what one is trying to signal. Signals of conformity to a group or cooperativeness to an ally might be affected differently by these factors than signals of higher status. In fact, the former may gain in credibility as they get older, in a "this is what our group has always done" kind of way, whereas in the latter, the signal may get weaker as time goes on. I'm not sure that this is what happens, but there's no reason to think that signals for different things are affected equally by changing factors.
What should we be reading to provide the necessary background and convince ourselves of these things?
The post here was specifically talking about status-indicating signals. What a business suit actually signals is more like acceptance of certain social norms about what "serious business" entails. Most clothing is more about ingroup identity than status, per se. To the extent that a suit is expensive, and other people notice this, it will also signal status via wealth, of course, but that's somewhat orthogonal.
Also, smiles are probably hard-wired and are actually difficult to fake.
Good point. I should have made the distinction between status signals and "conformity" signals clearer. But I do think that there are very distinct mechanisms at work there, even though the ultimate end [higher status] is probably the same. [That is, we signal conformity to an employer to get a job that will give us higher status.]
My concern was mostly that "higher status is the end goal" has very little explanatory power in itself. Understanding more specifically what certain things signal is far more helpful.
Could you expound the evidence exposed by the donning of a suit? I'm having trouble fitting myself into these systems. It'd mean a lot to me to get an explanation from someone who knows what a valid argument looks like.