[Link] How Signaling Ossifies Behavior

Jayson_Virissimo

Here is a new post at EconLog in which Bryan Caplan discusses how signalling contributes to the status quo bias.

The lesson: In the real world, signaling naturally tends to ossify behavior - to lock in whatever the status quo happens to be. If you're an optimist, you can protest, "It's only a tendency." But even an optimist should admit that this tendency leads to atypically slow and unreliable progress.

Here is a new post at EconLog in which Bryan Caplan discusses how signalling contributes to the status quo bias.

The lesson: In the real world, signaling naturally tends to ossify behavior - to lock in whatever the status quo happens to be. If you're an optimist, you can protest, "It's only a tendency." But even an optimist should admit that this tendency leads to atypically slow and unreliable progress.

Hm. I see conformity as a factor that causes cults, not the other way around.

Most people don't join cults because their friends, family, etc. would look at them funny (assuming their friends, family, etc. are not currently in cults). Conformity keeps people in cults, but I don't think it causes people to join them. We might see people bouncing between a larger number of smaller cults.

Probably for high-IQ "nerds", conformity is more frequently bad, because we're often smarter than the people we're considering whether to conform with, and therefore better equipped to make decisions.

Well, or so we tell ourselves. (It seems healthy to be generally suspicious of stories that make my tribe look good.) A more realistic story might be that "nerds" have atypical needs and so might need to manage their lives differently from what's dictated by cultural norms.

Conformity keeps people in cults, but I don't think it causes people to join them.

That's not obvious to me at all... my rough (highly uninformed) model of how cult initiations work is that you get sucked in to a situation (e.g. Scientology "stress testing" or similar) where you're forced to either not conform or join the cult. (Also fits my (very limited) observation of fraternity initiations.)

Well, or so we tell ourselves. (It seems healthy to be generally suspicious of stories that make my tribe look good.)

Just because a story is flatte... (read more)

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[Link] How Signaling Ossifies Behavior

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[Link] How Signaling Ossifies Behavior

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