I am looking for some salient examples of counter-signaling. The classic case is the rich man who dresses like a bum – he has no one he needs to please. Casual dress signals the very high level of his status and his absence of a boss. Of course this equilibrium is not always mimic-proof (e.g., virtually anyone can dress like a bum). This strategy works for the rich if only they have some other means of causing people to think they are very high-quality.
Top nerd programmers often don’t wear ties. Truly beautiful women might deliberately dress down. Can you think of other plausible examples? Does counter-signaling work best when a person has already built up a mystique? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer…
Addendum: Here is my previous post on counter-signaling.
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Successful pols do this all the time. George H.W. Bush said he like pork rinds, remember? And George W. claimed, after losing his first run for political office in Texas (during which he touted his Ivy League education), that he’d never get “out-dumbed” again. (I have also heard him use the word “shit”. Seriously.)
It’s true that in street racing you can get more attention with a car completly stock looking that is very fast. The term for this kind of car is a sleeper. A good example i can remember seeing was an audi stationwagon blowing the doors off a dodge viper.
Many of my students act stupid. I think they learned it from me.
“Top nerd programmers often don’t wear ties.”
Programmers only wear ties if forced. Anyone who wears one from free choice will get little respect from me and would bomb an interview unless he was brilliant.
When I worked in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, the top executives took pains to make sure they were more casually dressed than anyone else (down to the holes in the jeans). By contrast, the best dressed with usually either the mail room guys trying to work their way up, or the Admin Assistants (who were usually also georgeous).
Anonymous2,
Government job.
George W. Bush. A man that used to be well spoken when running governor of Texas and now speaks less eloquently. He grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and now speaks like a cowboy. Ultimate counter-signal!
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I think what you are doing is great!!! I want to use your color scheme at my sites…
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THE perfect example:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/10/twitters_new_ceo
Craig Newmark‘s business card reads Customer Service Representative and CEO.
What an unbelievable smackdown to Mark Zuckerberg and other pretentious ******. Craigslist is a priori, a posteriori, a fortiori a great idea. (unlike FB, only obvious ex post)
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