This post isn’t about trying to find some sort of definitive Popperian test of the hypothesis that our behavior is often influenced by the fact that it influences how others think of us. That seems so obvious as to not be very interesting to test. I agree that the fact that something can signal doesn’t imply that it is chosen to signal. The question here is about the degree of influence on the details of our behavior, which seems like a clear sensible question even if it doesn’t suggest an easy formula for determining in each situation.
The question here is about the degree of influence on the details of our behavior,
That clears it up substantially, but it does not sound like what you asked originally. It’s clear that hours of sleep could be used to signal status. It’s not at clear (and it seems unlikely) that hours of sleep are influenced by a desire to signal status. “The degree of influence on the details of our behaviour” is a fine criteria; it just doesn’t seem like what you asked for in the original post.
This post isn’t about trying to find some sort of definitive Popperian test of the hypothesis that our behavior is often influenced by the fact that it influences how others think of us. That seems so obvious as to not be very interesting to test. I agree that the fact that something can signal doesn’t imply that it is chosen to signal. The question here is about the degree of influence on the details of our behavior, which seems like a clear sensible question even if it doesn’t suggest an easy formula for determining in each situation.
That clears it up substantially, but it does not sound like what you asked originally. It’s clear that hours of sleep could be used to signal status. It’s not at clear (and it seems unlikely) that hours of sleep are influenced by a desire to signal status. “The degree of influence on the details of our behaviour” is a fine criteria; it just doesn’t seem like what you asked for in the original post.