“When you see teenagers and young adults posting their interests in music, books, and film on their MySpace websites, consider the costly signaling principles at work.”
Wait, what? What’s costly about posting something to Myspace? The “costly” part of “costly signaling” has a rather precise meaning in evolutionary biology: an extravagant expenditure of scarce resources, useful because potential mates who correctly interpret that as entailing your high fitness thereby improve their own. Stotting is a typical example.
Here it seems to me that the author is just throwing scientific-sounding lingo around to bolster pure speculation. Taboo “costly signaling” and the author is saying: “the genes of girls who picked boys who spouted weird antisocial nonsense fared better, because only boys whose splendid health allowed them to pick up such nonsense in the first place would do that”.
I’m unconvinced: stripped of the highfalutin’ language this makes much less sense. Even if I try to repair the argument by bringing the parasite connection back in: “oh, this boy is quoting David Lynch, cue some social module which infers that he must have spent time with people from foreign tribes, which means that he will have deliberately exposed himself to lice of unusual size, which means that he must be quite confident of his own health to start with; surely he will make a fine father for my offspring”.
More abstractly, “costly signaling” theory requires that it should be hard for low-fitness individuals to send a fake signal. Clearly this isn’t the case here—anyone can pretend to spout weird antisocial nonsense.
More abstractly, “costly signaling” theory requires that it should be hard for low-fitness individuals to send a fake signal. Clearly this isn’t the case here—anyone can pretend to spout weird antisocial nonsense.
I disagree; I think this is an excellent use of the handicap principle (though it remains to be seen whether it’s actually true). Any gazelle can go stotting, too, if by “can” you mean “it is physically possible for them to do so”. But only a gazelle very confident in its speed actually will, because all the other gazelles are too worried about being eaten by lions to dare to try it.
Likewise, anyone can claim to like weird foreign films on MySpace, but only a person very confident in her popularity actually will, because all the other people are too worried about being shunned.
The number one objection I have to this idea isn’t that it’s not evolutionarily plausible, but that it doesn’t fit observed data: it’s not the high school quarterbacks and cheerleaders who are liking weird foreign films, it’s kinda weird people who aren’t popular anyway: anime is the most obvious example. Any further argument for this idea would have to explain why it goes so terribly wrong.
We seem to be in agreement that Miller’s argument (such as it can be reconstructed from the quotes) is weak, but disagreeing about the reasons why?
Likewise, anyone can claim to like weird foreign films on MySpace, but only a person very confident in her popularity actually will, because all the other people are too worried about being shunned.
The difference between the two cases is that the gazelle is wasting time that she could use to get a head start on the predator, as well as energetic resources which could prolong its flight. The behaviour is obviously paradoxical and demands explanation.
There is no similar loss of valuable resources on the part of someone expressing admiration for Lynch films: quoting lines from Mulholland Drive does not result immediately and systematically in being socially shunned. It is at most a way of expressing affiliation with one particular group rather than another, as PJ suggests, but any cultural behavior is going to do that anyway. There is nothing obviously paradoxical about expressing one’s likes and dislikes, and furthermore it has no obvious direct impact on reproductive fitness.
IOW, if you hadn’t invented costly signaling theory (or “handicap principle”) and came across teenagers quoting obscure references on Myspace, you wouldn’t feel compelled to invent that theory specifically.
I’m no expert on costly signaling theory, but I can’t see any reason it shouldn’t apply to opportunity costs as well as any other kind of cost. If I see twenty people using a social network to establish themselves as hip, popular kids who like all the cool trendy things to like, and one person using that network to quote obscure references instead, the fact that that kid is giving up the opportunity to cement their status as hip and popular seems noteworthy.
If everyone is using the same sorts of signals to establish themselves as hip and cool, then it diminishes the value of the signal. That’s when countersignaling becomes useful.
Quarterbacks and cheerleaders are still treated as archetypes for popularity, but I don’t think it’s obvious that they tend to have larger circles of acquaintances with positive regard than, say, high profile theater members, who I’d guess would tend to exhibit higher openness.
Even anime nerds can have high status and popularity among other anime nerds. What you do to signal status depends on who you’re trying to cultivate status with. I would pick out different favorites of mine to convince a creative writing professor that I have interesting and sophisticated tastes than if I were trying to convince an avid follower of anime (although I’d probably bring up Oyasumi Punpun either way.)
More abstractly, “costly signaling” theory requires that it should be hard for low-fitness individuals to send a fake signal. Clearly this isn’t the case here—anyone can pretend to spout weird antisocial nonsense.
The costly signaling here is social, not health. That is, it’s signaling what group(s) you ally yourself with, and the cost is what groups you thereby pit yourself against.
That doesn’t seem like an appropriate use of the term; any signal of allegiance could do the same. Interpreting costly signalling so broadly robs it of its usefulness as jargon.
It seems to me that Miller really is saying that we treat memes that are high on the openness scale as risk factors on an unconscious level, and the evidence excerpted here isn’t enough to disabuse my skepticism of that.
It is not inconceivable but I would still bet against it. I would attribute any benefits to joining small groups to any exclusivity that the group, enhanced cooperation within a small group or some innate reason for more potential cooperation with those people than with others.
As would I; from what limited observational evidence I have, it seems far more a matter of wanting to be in-group for the people already in that group than anything more meta. It just doesn’t seem outright inconceivable.
Wait, what? What’s costly about posting something to Myspace? The “costly” part of “costly signaling” has a rather precise meaning in evolutionary biology: an extravagant expenditure of scarce resources, useful because potential mates who correctly interpret that as entailing your high fitness thereby improve their own. Stotting is a typical example.
Here it seems to me that the author is just throwing scientific-sounding lingo around to bolster pure speculation. Taboo “costly signaling” and the author is saying: “the genes of girls who picked boys who spouted weird antisocial nonsense fared better, because only boys whose splendid health allowed them to pick up such nonsense in the first place would do that”.
I’m unconvinced: stripped of the highfalutin’ language this makes much less sense. Even if I try to repair the argument by bringing the parasite connection back in: “oh, this boy is quoting David Lynch, cue some social module which infers that he must have spent time with people from foreign tribes, which means that he will have deliberately exposed himself to lice of unusual size, which means that he must be quite confident of his own health to start with; surely he will make a fine father for my offspring”.
More abstractly, “costly signaling” theory requires that it should be hard for low-fitness individuals to send a fake signal. Clearly this isn’t the case here—anyone can pretend to spout weird antisocial nonsense.
I disagree; I think this is an excellent use of the handicap principle (though it remains to be seen whether it’s actually true). Any gazelle can go stotting, too, if by “can” you mean “it is physically possible for them to do so”. But only a gazelle very confident in its speed actually will, because all the other gazelles are too worried about being eaten by lions to dare to try it.
Likewise, anyone can claim to like weird foreign films on MySpace, but only a person very confident in her popularity actually will, because all the other people are too worried about being shunned.
The number one objection I have to this idea isn’t that it’s not evolutionarily plausible, but that it doesn’t fit observed data: it’s not the high school quarterbacks and cheerleaders who are liking weird foreign films, it’s kinda weird people who aren’t popular anyway: anime is the most obvious example. Any further argument for this idea would have to explain why it goes so terribly wrong.
We seem to be in agreement that Miller’s argument (such as it can be reconstructed from the quotes) is weak, but disagreeing about the reasons why?
The difference between the two cases is that the gazelle is wasting time that she could use to get a head start on the predator, as well as energetic resources which could prolong its flight. The behaviour is obviously paradoxical and demands explanation.
There is no similar loss of valuable resources on the part of someone expressing admiration for Lynch films: quoting lines from Mulholland Drive does not result immediately and systematically in being socially shunned. It is at most a way of expressing affiliation with one particular group rather than another, as PJ suggests, but any cultural behavior is going to do that anyway. There is nothing obviously paradoxical about expressing one’s likes and dislikes, and furthermore it has no obvious direct impact on reproductive fitness.
IOW, if you hadn’t invented costly signaling theory (or “handicap principle”) and came across teenagers quoting obscure references on Myspace, you wouldn’t feel compelled to invent that theory specifically.
I’m no expert on costly signaling theory, but I can’t see any reason it shouldn’t apply to opportunity costs as well as any other kind of cost. If I see twenty people using a social network to establish themselves as hip, popular kids who like all the cool trendy things to like, and one person using that network to quote obscure references instead, the fact that that kid is giving up the opportunity to cement their status as hip and popular seems noteworthy.
If everyone is using the same sorts of signals to establish themselves as hip and cool, then it diminishes the value of the signal. That’s when countersignaling becomes useful.
Quarterbacks and cheerleaders are still treated as archetypes for popularity, but I don’t think it’s obvious that they tend to have larger circles of acquaintances with positive regard than, say, high profile theater members, who I’d guess would tend to exhibit higher openness.
Even anime nerds can have high status and popularity among other anime nerds. What you do to signal status depends on who you’re trying to cultivate status with. I would pick out different favorites of mine to convince a creative writing professor that I have interesting and sophisticated tastes than if I were trying to convince an avid follower of anime (although I’d probably bring up Oyasumi Punpun either way.)
TvTropes warning: That link just swallowed over an hour. ;)
The costly signaling here is social, not health. That is, it’s signaling what group(s) you ally yourself with, and the cost is what groups you thereby pit yourself against.
That doesn’t seem like an appropriate use of the term; any signal of allegiance could do the same. Interpreting costly signalling so broadly robs it of its usefulness as jargon.
It seems to me that Miller really is saying that we treat memes that are high on the openness scale as risk factors on an unconscious level, and the evidence excerpted here isn’t enough to disabuse my skepticism of that.
Joining a small group as opposed to a large one may be costly signalling—“My genes are good enough that I don’t need so many allies”
It is not inconceivable but I would still bet against it. I would attribute any benefits to joining small groups to any exclusivity that the group, enhanced cooperation within a small group or some innate reason for more potential cooperation with those people than with others.
As would I; from what limited observational evidence I have, it seems far more a matter of wanting to be in-group for the people already in that group than anything more meta. It just doesn’t seem outright inconceivable.