For me, the answer for each question appears to be "both".
Standing up straight-- High: Politician addressing an audience, wanting to show confidence Low: Soldier, at attention
Saying what's on your mind, without thinking it through-- High: Confident person, assured of their status in the group Low: Person revealing emotions which are considered taboo to discuss.
Making an effort to have a pleasant conversation-- High: Skilled businessman or other "people person" trying motivated to accomplish a positive outcome with that person. Low: Service industry person who must be deferential to keep their job
Wearing the most comfortable possible clothes-- High: The business owner who can wear whatever they want and still be paid attention to because of their innate value Low: The slacker who has stopped caring about their sweapants and stained shirt
Apologizing to someone you've wronged-- High: The conscientious, strong, professional person with integrity who has the wisdom do recognize their mistake and seeks to keep lines of communication open and maintain an honest and fair relationship. Low: Someone who must apologize for violating a social norm.
Blowing your nose in front of people-- High: A person assured in their humanity who doesn't feel the need to hide their imperfections Low: A person who lacks self-consciousness or "good breeding" or has stopped caring about their image.
Asking for permission-- High: Someone with values who respects others' boundaries Low: Someone who must appeal to authority to accomplish something
Showing off-- High: Someone who wants to achieve certain ends by a deliberate display of talent Low: An immature person caught up in their shallow drives, who is not be that impressive, and is not impressing anyone that matters.
Some things the examples seem to have in common is:
-High status people have innate worth and are assured of their value. They do the same things but because they want to achieve something that is not necessary. i.e. they are free to do it.
-Low Status people are of low value to others. They do the same things because they have to do it or they will be punished.
These are good examples showing that status signals are not singular, isolated actions, but are interpreted by combining many different signals into a larger, complex whole with highly variant outcomes depending on which signals are being combined (alternatively, "context").
I think recent posts on the topic are simplifying too much and providing overly broad, vague definitions of "signal" and "status".
The "status" hypothesis simply claims that we associate one another with a one-dimensional quantity: the perceived degree to which others' behavior can affect our well-being. And each of us behaves toward our peers according to our internally represented status mapping.
Imagine that, within your group, you're in a position where everyone wants to please you and no one can afford to challenge you. What does this mean for your behavior? It means you get to act selfish -- focusing on what makes you most pleased, and becoming less sensitive to lower-grade pleasure stimuli.
Now let's say you meet an outsider. They want to estimate your status, because it's a useful and efficient value to remember. And when they see you acting selfishly in front of others in your group, they will infer the lopsided balance of power.
In your own life, when you interact with someone who could affect your well-being, you do your best to act in a way that is valuable to them, hoping they will be motivated to reciprocate. The thing is, if an observer witnesses your unselfish behavior, it's a telltale sign of your lower status. And this scenario is so general, and so common, that most people learn to be very observant of others' deviations from selfishness.
On Less Wrong, we already understand the phenomenon of status signaling -- the causal link from status to behavior, and the inferential link from behavior to status. If we also recognize the role of selfishness as a reliable status signal, we can gain a lot of predictive power about which specific behavioral mannerisms are high- and low-status.
Are each of the following high- or low-status?
1. Standing up straight
2. Saying what's on your mind, without thinking it through
3. Making an effort to have a pleasant conversation
4. Wearing the most comfortable possible clothes
5. Apologizing to someone you've wronged
6. Blowing your nose in front of people
7. Asking for permission
8. Showing off
Answers:
1. Standing up straight is low-status, because you're obviously doing it to make an impression on others -- there's no first-order benefit to yourself.
2. Saying what's on your mind is high-status, because you're doing something pleasurable. This signal is most reliable when what you say doesn't have any intellectual merit.
3. Making an effort to have a pleasant conversation is low-status. It's high-status to talk about what you care about.
4. Wearing the most comfortable possible clothes is high-status, because you're clearly benefiting yourself. (Dressing in fashionable clothes is also high-status, through a different inferential pathway.)
5. Apologizing is low-status because you're obviously not doing it for yourself.
6. Blowing your nose is high-status because it's pleasurable and shows that you aren't affected enough by others to stop.
7. Asking for permission is low-status. Compare: recognizing that proceeding would be pleasurable, and believing that you are immune to any negative consequences.
8. Showing off is low-status, because it reveals that the prospect of impressing your peers drives you to do things which aren't first-order selfish. (Of course, the thing you are showing off might legitimately signal status.)
Pwno's post makes a good related point: The most reliable high-status signal is indifference. If you're indifferent to a person, it means their behavior doesn't even factor into your expectation of well-being. It means your computational resources are too limited to allocate them their own variable, since its value matters so little. How could you act indifferent if you weren't high-status?