Good question. One answer sometimes given to why men don’t woo women with their bank statement or the like is that it is just hard to move from one equilibrium to another, because being the first man to try to woo a woman with his bank statement looks weird, and looking weird sends a bad signal.
Another thing to notice—which I’m not sure we have a good explanation for—is that people often do what I think is sometimes called ‘multimodal signaling’ - they signal the same thing in lots of different ways. For instance, instead of spending all their money on the most expensive car they can get, they spend some on a moderately expensive suit, and some on a nice house, etc.
The idea that what a man is trying to signal is wealth is false for reasons similar to Homo Economicus being a false analogy. A view a little closer to the truth (but still far from the socioendocrinological awesomeness involved) is here.
For some reason these discussions are always emotionally abhorrent to me. I’ve been among rich people all my life, so it’s not related to being rich or poor. I just find it disgusting and morally outrageous that people even consider saying that what a man has to offer a woman is the extension of his bank account. It’s a deflationary account of the beauty of courtship, love, romance and even parenting beyond my wildest dreams. I don’t understand to what extent people in internet discussions like this really mean it when they say that what is being signaled could be substituted by auditing, but if that is truly what people mean, it is a sad mindstate to be in, to think that the World works that way.
Good question. One answer sometimes given to why men don’t woo women with their bank statement or the like is that it is just hard to move from one equilibrium to another, because being the first man to try to woo a woman with his bank statement looks weird, and looking weird sends a bad signal.
Another thing to notice—which I’m not sure we have a good explanation for—is that people often do what I think is sometimes called ‘multimodal signaling’ - they signal the same thing in lots of different ways. For instance, instead of spending all their money on the most expensive car they can get, they spend some on a moderately expensive suit, and some on a nice house, etc.
The idea that what a man is trying to signal is wealth is false for reasons similar to Homo Economicus being a false analogy. A view a little closer to the truth (but still far from the socioendocrinological awesomeness involved) is here.
For some reason these discussions are always emotionally abhorrent to me. I’ve been among rich people all my life, so it’s not related to being rich or poor. I just find it disgusting and morally outrageous that people even consider saying that what a man has to offer a woman is the extension of his bank account. It’s a deflationary account of the beauty of courtship, love, romance and even parenting beyond my wildest dreams. I don’t understand to what extent people in internet discussions like this really mean it when they say that what is being signaled could be substituted by auditing, but if that is truly what people mean, it is a sad mindstate to be in, to think that the World works that way.