Anything habitually done alone and considered pointless, embarrassing, unwise, or revolting to discuss publicly is a candidate. Most things that go on in the bathroom count. Clipping one’s toenails (if one does not wear open-toed shoes); little doodles, drawn with no one watching, to be thrown away after completion; doing laundry in a private washing machine; selecting a toaster setting when preparing breakfast alone.
It’s possible that I’m underestimating the sorts of things people subconsciously expect others to pick up on, but I also doubt anyone is signaling when: they (publicly) eat (their own) package of M&Ms with a particular color order in mind; they change lightbulbs; they skip one short story in an anthology; they pick at lint on an article of clothing. Choosing to do these things or not isn’t obtrusive, and when they are done at all, there isn’t much meaningful variation in how they’re done. (Which short story you skip might matter, but out of an entire anthology, it’s unlikely that one worth skipping would come up in conversation individually, and I don’t think the story-skipping party would be likely to bring it up first.)
Robin assumes that anything done in public (visible to others) is for signaling, so for his assumptions, I think you’re right that this is the best answer.
I’m really questioning that assumption though. I think anything we do that species with less complex social environments also do would qualify as likely not for signaling: eating, sex, anti-predatory activities, etc.
And I think there’s value in distinguishing between things we do to strut (showing off the newest cell phone) and things we do because of required social signaling (mowing the lawn). Otherwise it seems too easy to say “Everything is signalling” and not really have learned much.
Well the fact of eating is clearly done mostly for non-signaling reasons, but since eating is social the details of how we eat are greatly influenced by signaling. So our beliefs about why we pick those details are unreliable, to the extent we tend to not be aware of signaling influences on behavoir.
I guess what I’m not sure about is, it seems (very nearly) everything we do is social, so (very nearly) everything would have signaling. Asking what signaling activities we do seems to be asking the wrong question.
Thinking of it from an evpsych point of view, I would expect that there is a mental organ of signaling (or the result of several organs) which attempts to signal at all possible opportunities. So whenever there are humans around, we seek the shortest path to the highest signal value.
If the machine doesn’t remember the setting and the next user can’t see it, this indeed may be self-signaling (self-priming? non-verbal self-affirmation?), but I’m pretty sure that Robin asked for examples of “least-signaling” activities, not “least-self-signaling” activities.
(On the other hand, mentioning the breakfast espresso setting to others is signaling proper.)
I think I’d want to lump self-signaling with signaling, since self-signaling would also lead to unreliable beliefs about one’s reasons for doing things.
Anything habitually done alone and considered pointless, embarrassing, unwise, or revolting to discuss publicly is a candidate. Most things that go on in the bathroom count. Clipping one’s toenails (if one does not wear open-toed shoes); little doodles, drawn with no one watching, to be thrown away after completion; doing laundry in a private washing machine; selecting a toaster setting when preparing breakfast alone.
It’s possible that I’m underestimating the sorts of things people subconsciously expect others to pick up on, but I also doubt anyone is signaling when: they (publicly) eat (their own) package of M&Ms with a particular color order in mind; they change lightbulbs; they skip one short story in an anthology; they pick at lint on an article of clothing. Choosing to do these things or not isn’t obtrusive, and when they are done at all, there isn’t much meaningful variation in how they’re done. (Which short story you skip might matter, but out of an entire anthology, it’s unlikely that one worth skipping would come up in conversation individually, and I don’t think the story-skipping party would be likely to bring it up first.)
Picking one’s nose.
… why are you all looking at me like that?
Robin assumes that anything done in public (visible to others) is for signaling, so for his assumptions, I think you’re right that this is the best answer.
I’m really questioning that assumption though. I think anything we do that species with less complex social environments also do would qualify as likely not for signaling: eating, sex, anti-predatory activities, etc.
And I think there’s value in distinguishing between things we do to strut (showing off the newest cell phone) and things we do because of required social signaling (mowing the lawn). Otherwise it seems too easy to say “Everything is signalling” and not really have learned much.
Well the fact of eating is clearly done mostly for non-signaling reasons, but since eating is social the details of how we eat are greatly influenced by signaling. So our beliefs about why we pick those details are unreliable, to the extent we tend to not be aware of signaling influences on behavoir.
I agree with that.
I guess what I’m not sure about is, it seems (very nearly) everything we do is social, so (very nearly) everything would have signaling. Asking what signaling activities we do seems to be asking the wrong question.
Thinking of it from an evpsych point of view, I would expect that there is a mental organ of signaling (or the result of several organs) which attempts to signal at all possible opportunities. So whenever there are humans around, we seek the shortest path to the highest signal value.
Of course, selecting an espresso machine setting may well be signalling, even when preparing breakfast alone.
If the machine doesn’t remember the setting and the next user can’t see it, this indeed may be self-signaling (self-priming? non-verbal self-affirmation?), but I’m pretty sure that Robin asked for examples of “least-signaling” activities, not “least-self-signaling” activities.
(On the other hand, mentioning the breakfast espresso setting to others is signaling proper.)
I think I’d want to lump self-signaling with signaling, since self-signaling would also lead to unreliable beliefs about one’s reasons for doing things.