I think “trust” is what you’re looking for, and signaling is one part of developing and nurturing that trust. It’s about the (mostly correct, or it doesn’t work) belief that you can expect certain behaviors and reactions, and strongly NOT expect others. If a large percentage of online interactions are with evil intent, it doesn’t matter too much whether they’re chatbots or human-trafficked exploitation farms—you can’t trust entities that you don’t know pretty well, and who don’t share your cultural and social norms and non-official judgement mechanisms.
I think “trust” is what you’re looking for, and signaling is one part of developing and nurturing that trust. It’s about the (mostly correct, or it doesn’t work) belief that you can expect certain behaviors and reactions, and strongly NOT expect others. If a large percentage of online interactions are with evil intent, it doesn’t matter too much whether they’re chatbots or human-trafficked exploitation farms—you can’t trust entities that you don’t know pretty well, and who don’t share your cultural and social norms and non-official judgement mechanisms.