You can't signal to rubes

You're describing costly signaling. Contrary to your opening statement,

The word 'signalling' is often used in Less Wrong, and often used wrongly.

people on LessWrong are usually using the term "signalling" consistently with its standard meaning in economics and evolutionary biology. From Wikipedia,

In economics, more precisely in contract theory, signalling is the idea that one party credibly conveys some information about itself to another party

Within evolutionary biology, signalling theory is a body of theoretical work examining communication between individuals. The central question is when organisms with conflicting interests should be expected to communicate "honestly".

In particular, the ev bio article even includes a section on dishonest signalling, which seems to be what you're complaining about here:

Seriously though, "signalling" is being used to mean "tricking people in to thinking that you are".

This post is still interesting as a highlight reel of different examples of signalling, and shows that the term is, in its standard usage, rather non-specific. It's just not an illustration that people here are using it wrongly.

You've basically come up with four criteria that describe the use of the word "signal" in a highly specific context - traits that exist for pure signalling purposes in evolution or game theory - and then decided, arbitrarily, that this is the one true meaning of "signal." I do not think you have provided adequate evidence or argument to back this claim up.

If everyone around me is a Republican and I am not, it might make sense that I would do things that would signal that I am a Republican, even if these are very cheap and have obvious positive returns. Your definition would not allow this - if it is cheap and has obvious positive returns, it is not "signaling" to you. What you're saying is that if I send a birthday card to a coworker I hate, then I am not "signaling" that I like that person because it's too cheap to send the card.

It may make sense to speak of weak or strong signals, or reliable or unreliable or misleading signals. But you've arbitrarily said that the word applies only when a certain arbitrary threshold is crossed (your 2 and 4).

Incidentally, your theory might actually work if 4 were eliminated and 2 read "the behaviour is more likely to occur if you possess a certain characteristic than if you do not." This would cover my birthday card example - it's cheap, but I'm more likely to do it if I like the person, so it does signal liking the person. But this change would also fix the counter-productive manager. She's doing things that she is more likely to do if she is decisive and in charge. Since she's being evaluated on those criteria, and not "good manager-ness" - which is not generally observable - it would make sense that she would choose to give those signals rather than not. But revising the theory appropriately seems to nullify most or all of your objections.

On this site, rube generally means 'red cube', and I had to look up the word to figure out what you meant here. Though this still makes a bit of sense--you can't signal to red cubes either.

I have a hard time telling whether you're trying to say that 'signaling' models are inaccurate, or just that calling them 'signaling' is misleading. I agree with the latter insofar as 'signaling' means this specific economic model, because the behaviors in question aren't directed at economically rational agents. I also can't tell if you dislike models that postulate stupidity (the strong status connotations of the word "rube" make me suspicious).

If you mean the former: I think you greatly overestimate median rationality in your take on the manager and butcher examples. All positive traits get conflated with each other by default. People can and do override their affective impressions with explicit reasoning, but more often than not they don't, especially when evaluating performance is difficult — and it's almost always more difficult than evaluating "does this person look like a winner?".

I also used to think that simple non-costly signaling couldn't possibly stably work, but experience (often with my own irrationality) changed my mind. This is less confusing if I think of it as social-primate (rather than general-intelligence) behavior; liking things/people other people like is socially useful. (This would likely be significant in the manager example in real life, e.g., I'll look better to my superiors if I make similar evaluations of my subordinates to them.)

The quality proposed was "status", but outrage is cheap. Any fool can be outraged at a blog post mentioning rape.

Now, status signaling is overused as an explanation. If the "HOW DARE YOU" comments are signaling (or 'signaling') anything, the obvious thing is alignment with the perceived-as-socially-powerful (implicit-Schelling-point-)faction condemning Robin, not status.

The word 'signalling' is often used in Less Wrong, and often used wrongly.

I recommend that people do not use this post as a guide to how to use the term 'signalling'. It presents false claims with authority and confidence.

These activities seem completely pointless, costly and difficult. Paradoxically, it is probably this very difficulty that serves to explain why they are done at all. Take the peacock’s tail. A peacock that has to struggle to survive while dragging around a conspicuous tail is clearly at a disadvantage. But if he can continue to survive, then clearly he must be pretty strong! So the peahens may choose to mate with him rather than the peacocks with less conspicuous tails, whose survival is thus a less impressive feat.

This is misleading. It idealizes and trivializes the signal given conveying the impression that it is 'strength' or (non-inclusive) fitness that must be signaled. However the peackock's tail is the go to example of Fisherian runaway. Even without considering strength-signalling implications the tails are signalling "if you mate with me your male offspring (and later generation male descendants) will likely also have enormous tails and be chosen as a mate by other hens". When it comes to sexual signalling, sexiness itself is one of the most powerful signals that can be sent. We don't need to rationalize that out into some objective signal of strength, health or virtue other than ability to successfully signal. In this (and some other social situations) signalling the ability to signal well is the primary point.

Clear thinking requires making distinctions. Using the word "signalling" to mean "pandering", "tricking people", "showing", or "toeing the party line" does nothing but lead to confusion and muddle.

To various degrees every one of those can be correctly described in terms of the signalling implications.

If you’re going to use jargon, use it in its precise sense. That’s what is jargon is for, communicating precisely.

Yes. And if you are going to preach about the usage of jargon it becomes even more important to get it right.

(I endorse Academian's description.)

It seems logically rude to create your own definition, declare it the one "true" definition, and then complain that others are using their own terms. The term "signalling" has been used consistently, judging by your examples of so-called misuse, and it is you who is refusing to interpret them correctly.

Furthermore, is it really that hard to postulate that people may associate certain traits with signals that do not require said traits to produce?

A peacock that has to struggle to survive while dragging around a conspicuous tail is clearly at a disadvantage. But if he can continue to survive, then clearly he must be pretty strong! So the peahens may choose to mate with him rather than the peacocks with less conspicuous tails, whose survival is thus a less impressive feat.

I'm not sure that's true. Wikipedia lists several competing theories:

• Sexual selection, first proposed by Darwin himself in this case: he thought peahens preferred peacocks with bigger tails, and so bigger tails evolved, regardless of expense in fitness.
• Costly signalling, proposed by Zahavi, as you describe.
• Some studies listed by Wikipedia claim that peacocks with smaller tails suffer more predation (mechanism unknown), and that females prefer males with certain tail patterns (many 'eyes') rather than size.
• Some other studies confuse everything even further by claiming big, erect, flashy tails serve to intimidate predators and evolved through ordinary natural selection.

Now, how would one test this? Especially considering that some theories mostly differ in their explanations of the evolutionary history leading to the present; they all match the present birds. I do know that real-life biologists sometime claim peacocks as archetypical evidence for sexual selection, and others claim it as evidence for costly signalling of fitness.

A good way of remembering this criterion is the slogan "You can't signal to rubes."

This doesn't seem like it describes your fourth criterion; it reads more like "Rubes can't signal."

I do think that the claim "you can't signal to rubes" is a good one to keep in mind, but like Psychohistorian points out, that limits you to a narrow component of signalling, which I might characterize as spending resources on authority, which is only worthwhile if the audience can recognize authority. If a moviemaker decides to actually use an Bald Eagle cry instead of a Red-tailed Hawk cry, most movie-goers will think (TVTropes link) they got it wrong, and only ornithologists will notice it's correct.

Isn't signalling just the practice of having non-obvious characteristic A and then exhibiting obvious characteristic B because P(A|B) > P(A) && P(B|A) > P(B) ? Which means that B gives information of A.

Intelligence is non-obvious, a degree in classics is. Peacock strength and cunning is non-obvious to peahens, but big tails are. Having intercontinental missiles is classified information, but moon landings are sensational news.

Batesian mimicry is a form of signaling in which dishonest signaling is, in fact, worth it - and it is absolutely still considered a signal.

Upvoted for opening discussion on a concept way too carelessly used. Another such concept I would like to see scrutinized here is social status.

Dishonest signalling isn’t worth it. By dishonest signalling, I mean enaging in a signalling behaviour when you don’t possess the quality you wish others to think you have. A weak peacock who grows a conspicuous tale will be eaten by predators. A stupid person who tries to get a degree in classics will fail his subjects. Faking the moon landing carries the risk that the conspiracy will be exposed and the American government would become a laughing stock. A good way of remembering this criterion is the slogan "You can't signal to rubes."

This seems false as a generalization.

Suppose that a double agent's loyalty is in question, so they choose to turn a sympathizer of their own country in to the government. Turning in a sympathizer of their country is certainly something that a person loyal to that country would have reason to be reluctant to do. It's likely to decrease suspicion that they're a double agent. But if it allows them to continue passing valuable information to their country, and to avoid being caught and punished themself, then it's probably worth it.

I don't know what it would make sense to call such behavior if not signalling, and dishonest signalling at that.

Why do peacocks grow such large, conspicuous tails? Why do people take degrees in subjects like Philosophy or Classics, despite these subjects having no obvious practical value? Why do people take pains to avoid splitting infinitives, even though everyone can understand split infinitives perfectly well?

The second example seems to fit in worse than the two others, given that plenty of people take degrees in such subjects due to a love of learning and due to being genuinely interested in them.

I don't understand the link between intelligence and signalling. It implies that only human beings signal, which contradicts the purpose of using the peacock as an example of real signalling.

Or maybe evolution really is smarter than us...

So, what message are you sending by failing to capitalize America? :P

A weak peacock who grows a conspicuous tale

This should say "tail", not "tale".

The rule that you mustn't split infinitives derives from Latin where splitting infinitives was impossible. So a person who doesn’t split infinitives is more likely to be a Latin scholar

Are you being serious?

But can you signal to bleggs?

4 Dishonest signalling isn’t worth it.

I seem to recall seeing some game theoretic signaling models with wasteful pooling equilibria, where everyone sends the same costly signal and the receiver can't distinguish between the senders of different qualities. Can't find a specific model now, but here is a slide that mentions this fact on page 20.

-Edit it looks like Academian said most of this already, I need to stop going afk mid-comment. I see several problems with this article. The most obvious is that it is arguing about definitions, and doing so in a situation were the majority of the participants seem to understand each other well enough that I don't think the argument is necessary for clarifying communications. The next is that I feel like the phrase "you can't signal to rubes" is confusing, and certainly not a good slogan. Lastly, to extent its meaningful to argue about the meaning of words what you say is wrong or at least not accepted in all disciplines. Based on my psychology classes and how I've seen the words used off of LW, what your four features loosely pinpoints is costly signaling. This is the type of signaling that people commonly are talking about when they say signaling, but it is just a subset of signaling which very much includes what you call "cheap talk" in one of the earlier comments. If I'm understanding wikipedia correctly this is also the case in biology. I'm not sure about economics or other disciplines. Even then most definitions only require 3 & 4. If trait A is something you want others to think you posses and doing behavior B without trait A is more costly than people thinking you have trait A is worthwhile, then B is a costly signal of A. Even if B is possible without A and/or it is worthwhile for people with A to do B even if nobody gets the signal.

Dishonest signalling isn’t worth it.

There are career criminals, so dishinesty can work. Dishonesty is not guaranteed to work, but "worth it" is statistical. BTW, many nations have been caught out in all kinds of bullcrap -- the Zinoviev Letter, Iran-Contra, etc.. It tends to get forgotten about. It's not like people have high expectations of politicians.