There’s Nothing Wrong with Signaling

There's a big difference between cheap and costly signals

Social signaling is a big deal.

A social signal is any behavior or decision, regardless of its form, intent, or the performer’s awareness, that emits information to observers.  

There are three basic elements of signaling.

First, people differ in their underlying attributes.

These attributes could be work ethic, moral character, intelligence, sense of humor, compassion, and so on.

Second, these traits have to be at least a little uncertain at first glance.

You can’t necessarily spot a person’s moral character from a brief observation. And if you ask someone “How good is your moral character?” You can’t expect complete honesty. Most people will give you an upwardly biased response.   

Third, people must differ in the strength of the signals they emit for these underlying qualities. If everyone is wearing the same outfit, then their clothes aren’t a viable signal of wealth.

There’s also a distinction between two kinds of signaling.

One is called “cheap talk.” For example, tweeting about how much you care about a topical political issue. This kind of signaling is easy to fake, and doesn’t tell you much about a person’s underlying attributes. Anyone can write a couple of short sentences about their concerns. But it doesn’t tell you much about the true strength of their commitment.

The other is called “costly signaling” or “honest signaling.” These signals are hard to fake. Not many people volunteer for months in a homeless shelter or make large, verifiable donations to a charitable cause. It’s reasonable to infer that those who do care more than those who tweet.  

For a signal to count as costly, it must be grueling for most people. Those who manage to send the signal are indicating something unique about themselves. Something that separates them from the crowd.

I suspect people evolved more to respond to signals of underlying traits rather than the traits themselves.

Imagine you had to choose between 2 people to have sex with:

1. An extremely attractive person who shows you verified medical documents indicating that the person is riddled with contagious illnesses

2. A strange-looking person with misshapen facial features and limbs of asymmetrical length who shows you verified medical documents indicating that the person has a clean bill of health

A lot of people would find this difficult to answer. This suggests we often rely on signals (appearance) more so than the underlying attribute the signal is meant to convey (health).

There is nothing wrong with signaling. We evolved to signal to others. We evolved to detect signals from others.

Yet I see many people who throw around the term “signaling” as if the term refers only to empty gestures or shallow aims.

They conflate signaling in general with cheap talk, or cheap signals, which don’t convey much useful information.

But “signaling” also encompasses costly signals, which are real evidence of an underlying quality. Costly signals tell us what the person is really about.

If someone posts something dumb online, it is silly to say they are just “signaling.” Because everything we say and do carry signals of something.

Imagine a guy jumps in front of a bullet to save his best friend. Is this signaling? Well, yes. It is a signal of the person’s love for his friend, his moral character, his willingness to self-sacrifice, and so on.

But taking a bullet for a friend is not “just a signal” in the sense that it is the same as cheap talk. It is a costly, hard-to-fake indicator of desirable attributes.

And in that split second before catching the bullet, the guy isn’t thinking “If I do this, people will think I am brave, compassionate, righteous, etc.”

Signals are sometimes conscious, but they are often not deliberate at all. Nor are signals even always about the sender of the signal.

What a person does is a signal only insofar as others infer information from it.

If I am trying to signal something but you don’t pick up on it, then this is the same as there being no signal at all.

On the other hand, if I thoughtlessly behave in a certain way and you are inferring useful information from my actions, then I have signaled something even if I didn’t intend to.

In other words, signals are often actually more about the receiver than the sender.

This means we can’t refrain from signaling. And choosing not to signal is itself a signal.

It’s silly to stigmatize signaling. Or use it as a pejorative.

Cheap talk, or cheap signals—that’s a different story.