Interesting ideas here. Let’s be clear on the two uses of the word “signaling”.
Behaviors such as clinging tightly to an in-group belief, or puffing out your chest while flirting, are “signaling” because of the reason for their existence—other people observed your ancestors doing the behavior, and that affected their own behavior so as to increase your ancestors’ gene frequencies.
Some signaling behavior includes conscious thought about the consequences of the behavior, so we can call that “conscious signaling”.
Your point is that if A believes B is consciously signaling, A will become less influenced by B because:
A knows that B has incentive to exaggerate, so will discount B’s claims.
If A thinks that B really cares about the impression he makes on A, then A will think B is lower status. (I don’t accept the post’s larger point that consciously impressing someone is always low status.)
It would be interesting if the claim that “signals expire” were true, but I don’t see how it is.
(2) above already explains half of why, on a date, B can’t show A his bank statement. The other half has been pointed out by Robin: It violates the social rules in our egalitarian society. If B were a medieval nobleman, he probably could directly show off his wealth.
Interesting ideas here. Let’s be clear on the two uses of the word “signaling”.
Behaviors such as clinging tightly to an in-group belief, or puffing out your chest while flirting, are “signaling” because of the reason for their existence—other people observed your ancestors doing the behavior, and that affected their own behavior so as to increase your ancestors’ gene frequencies.
Some signaling behavior includes conscious thought about the consequences of the behavior, so we can call that “conscious signaling”.
Your point is that if A believes B is consciously signaling, A will become less influenced by B because:
A knows that B has incentive to exaggerate, so will discount B’s claims.
If A thinks that B really cares about the impression he makes on A, then A will think B is lower status. (I don’t accept the post’s larger point that consciously impressing someone is always low status.)
It would be interesting if the claim that “signals expire” were true, but I don’t see how it is.
(2) above already explains half of why, on a date, B can’t show A his bank statement. The other half has been pointed out by Robin: It violates the social rules in our egalitarian society. If B were a medieval nobleman, he probably could directly show off his wealth.