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Countersignaling, part #637
The guy in jeans at the Sotheby's auction is more likely to buy a $40 million Picasso than the guy in the suit, who is probably just an art dealer.
Here is the link, thanks to Trieu Truong. Here is my previous post on counter-signaling.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 25, 2007 at 10:36 AM in The Arts | Permalink
Comments
years ago my wife worked for the japanese government and explained the
hierarchy (at the time) of executives' suits. Junior execs almost
always wore expensive navy suits, mid-levels wore brown, and top levels
wore tan. If you saw someone wearing tweed it was almost certainly the
founder or top exec of the company.
Posted by: hard return ¶ at Jun 25, 2007 11:55:16 AM
Tyler_Cowen: I had one more example of countersignaling for you that I would have put in that previous post:
I add underscores to people's handles when replying to them as a way of building up a mystique. Is Person
using a screen-reader? An automated handle-parser? A savant? Who know?
Posted by: Person at Jun 25, 2007 12:22:04 PM
Is leaving all that comment spam on that previous post on counter-signalling itself some sort of counter-signal?
Posted by: triticale at Jun 25, 2007 1:58:09 PM
Tyler, can you provide us a formal definition of counter-signaling?
Posted by: jizay at Jun 25, 2007 2:32:10 PM
Use of unattractive design and gray color in commercial/industrial/professional-grade equipment may also be considered as counter-signaling. An attractive and colorful design is even considered as a signal for incompetency in the equipment's quality.
Posted by: topkara at Jun 25, 2007 4:27:21 PM
When I stop by Trader Joe's after work they say "Thank you, Sir" (with crispness). When I ride my bike over they say "Here you go, Buddy" (with sympathy).
Posted by: odograph at Jun 25, 2007 5:00:24 PM
It's not a definition but a pretty thorough explination of it:
Feltovich, Hargaugh, and To [1] develop a formal model in which receivers of signals judge the senders of signals based not only on what can be inferred from the signal sent, but also on additional information, which is assumed to be helpful but not perfect. For example, senders might be of Low, Medium, or High quality, and the additional information might be adequate for distinguishing Low from High but not necessarily from distinguishing Medium from Low or High. Under certain circumstances, Medium-quality senders will have an incentive to signal (to ensure that they can be distinguished from Low-quality ones), but High-quality senders may not - they are not likely to be mistaken for Low-quality senders in any case, and signaling behavior may mark them as Medium.
It comes down to in most signaling behavior the high (very high) status members seek to do something contrary to the expected signal to separate themselves from all the medium status folk. A good example in the last thread is, once all of your peers can afford the nice steak house, only someone really impressive would be allowed to remain while in gross violation of the dress code.
Posted by: nelsonal at Jun 25, 2007 5:11:08 PM
A really silly example came to mind on reading that last thread: Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books. He tends to act slightly ridiculous and behave almost as if he isn't really paying attention. He can get away with it because everyone knows he's the best, and if he acts slightly dotty they'll just have to live with it. So his willingness to act slightly nuts and ignore conventions serves to underscore just how good he is; the reader, in fact, infers his ability almost entirely from these countersignals.
Posted by: Jadagul at Jun 25, 2007 11:34:18 PM
[The guy in jeans at the Sotheby's auction is more likely to buy a $40 million Picasso than the guy in the suit, who is probably just an art dealer.]
this one actually cried out for a great big loud "Oh Yeahhhh????!". It just isn't true. I hope that this habit of making stuff up is one that Murdoch stamps on, hard.
Posted by: dsquared at Jun 26, 2007 2:36:48 AM
Ugly website are said to signal trust - although that is not the only explanation for their success.
I hope you do not mind the link to my blog - I wanted to blog about it, and it seems pointless to duplicate what I said here.
Posted by: Graeme Pietersz at Jun 29, 2007 2:22:40 AM
Posted by: sdf at Mar 31, 2008 1:59:35 AM
