At first I was going to say that those were actually the two examples I didn't agree with. I was going to ask, "Does it really signal low status to properly manage the inferential distance? Wouldn't it be the opposite?"

But once I tried going on to writing the next sentence, I realized something. It's high status to be ahead of somebody in the inferential distance. How often have you witnessed an argument where one person used a bunch of jargon from some science, their opponent asked them to close the inferential distance by defining those terms, and then the first guy acted as if the second had no business in the discussion if he doesn't even know what those terms mean?

If the goal was simply to communicate one's ideas, such behavior would be a fundamental incompetence: improper management of the inferential distance. But when the prize isn't greater understanding, but social status, it can be useful to refuse to define your terms.

Is this what the article had in mind, or what?

Is it a coincidence that several markers of good thinking habits do double duty as low-status behaviors?

Good thinking habits require being careful. Being careful is associated with being afraid. Being afraid is associated with being low-status.

To project high status, you should practice your art secretly, and only show public your best results -- your achieved goals, your skills, and the respect of other people.

Our instincts are just evolutionary selected heuristics: sometimes they detect an activity as low-status even if the result of activity is high-status. It often makes sense... in an ancient environment.