For what it’s worth, I buy a fair amount of organic food, though this may be the first time I’ve talked about it. I’m definitely not signalling other people. I have a sketchy assumption that people mostly buy organic food out of a vague assumption that it’s better/safer.
How would you tell why most people buy organic food?
I usually treat ‘signaling’ as the null hypothesis for human behavior: if the behavior doesn’t make sense on its own, I assume it is signaling.
If a person is attempting to maximize their health, there are behaviors that have a better cost:effectiveness ratio than buying organic. Most of the people I encounter who buy organic do few to none of these things.
If a person is attempting to signal some sort of association with a the “health-food/green-living/upper-class” tribe (one or all of them) then buying organic makes far more sense.
Having encountered more of the signaling behavior than the healthy behavior anecdotally, the signaling behavior is more likely. I haven’t invested any real effort into proving this (People could just be systematically acting in a sub-optimal fashion, for instance) but given how much of what people do is signaling behavior, it is my baseline explanation.
If a person is attempting to maximize their health, there are behaviors that have a better cost:effectiveness ratio than buying organic.
Um, are you considering convenience and other akrasic factors under “cost”, and allowing for perceived or anticipated “effectiveness”? If not, your analysis is probably incorrect. (Heck, it’s probably just incorrect when you consider what information people have about these behaviors.)
(People could just be systematically acting in a sub-optimal fashion, for instance) but given how much of what people do is signaling behavior, it is my baseline explanation.
You should probably update more of it towards the parenthesized hypothesis, i.e. people behaving in sub-optimal ways by default. If this weren’t the default, there’d be little need for Less Wrong.
Easiest way is to hang out among other health maximization signalers, I suppose. Then all you have to do is convince yourself that status within your cohort is cool.
This may be one of the main benefits of going to a gym. I also know that one of the reasons having a “gym buddy” is recommended is because then you are more likely to exercise because if you don’t then you are letting your buddy down. In fact, other than having someone to spot you, I suspect this is the primary benefit to having an exercise buddy.
I usually treat ‘signaling’ as the null hypothesis for human behavior: if the behavior doesn’t make sense on its own, I assume it is signaling.
That seems unwarranted. That you don’t know why someone is doing something means only that you do not know the reason. I see no reason to think that when people say that organic produce is better than non-organic, that they are not merely saying what they actually think. If there was no-one who actually believed that, how could saying it be a signal?
There can only be such a thing as fake gold because there is such a thing as real gold.
I think that depends entirely on the relative availability and social status of buying organic. If buying organic food requires driving an hour and spending twice as much (which it can, if you live in a small town in the midwest or other similar situations) then it definitely takes willpower to buy organic. Similarly, if you have certain debilitating physical or psychological conditions, just buying food in general may take willpower (although the willpower cost between non-organic and organic may be negligible.) Also, just knowing that there are foods out there that you can’t buy (given a pre-commitment to organic foods) can result in loss of willpower.
All things being equal, exercising probably takes more willpower than buying organic food, but there’s nothing necessary about that in individual cases, and commiting to buying organic food probably uses some small amount of willpower, regardless.
People could just be systematically acting in a sub-optimal fashion, for instance
Ways this could be the case:
they don’t know about those other health-improving behaviours, or they misunderstand their effectiveness (or they believe they’re effective but they lack the corresponding alief);
they weigh their costs more heavily than you do (my grandma feels that if she couldn’t eat as much as she does, she would feel deprived of one of the main pleasures of life, whereas that would hardly bother me);
they correctly estimate their cost:effectiveness ratio, but they fail to adhere to them due to akrasia.
I’d guess that these effects are more relevant than signalling for a two-digit percentage of the people who buy organic food but don’t do other health-benefitting behaviours.
I think many more people eat non-organic food because it’s cheaper and/or more easily available.
Even “many more” is an understatement. I think the fraction of people who would prefer non-organic food over organic food if the prices and the convenience were the same would be tiny.
Yes, because most people agree organic food is higher status and signals caring about high-status causes, even if they choose not to spend extra money on it.
Seems like conservation of expected evidence should apply here. Not eating organic food does have signaling implications, but it’s so much more common that the signal should be a lot weaker.
This might not be true if you live in an area where organic produce is more common than average, though—like a lot of middle-to-upper-class urban areas.
I probably should have thought this through more carefully—there are people who think making a point of eating organic food is ridiculous, and talk about that opinion. At this point, I think they’re into signalling territory, but that’s about what they say more than about what they eat, I think.
Um. I suppose that some other food-eating behavior is also signaling, but I don’t think that the majority if non-organic food eaters are doing it because they conceive of themselves as people who don’t eat organic food and want to show off that fact. And I’m rather suspicious of the idea that not eating a selection of foods is signaling as a general rule. Like, someone could eat Italian food as a form of signaling (especially if they themselves identify as Italian) but someone who doesn’t eat Italian food is probably not doing it because they think of themselves as someone who “doesn’t eat Italian” and wants to signal that fact.
I suppose there are probably people out there who don’t eat organic as a way of showing affiliation, but I don’t think that encompasses any significant portion of those people who do not eat organic food.
For what it’s worth, I buy a fair amount of organic food, though this may be the first time I’ve talked about it. I’m definitely not signalling other people. I have a sketchy assumption that people mostly buy organic food out of a vague assumption that it’s better/safer.
How would you tell why most people buy organic food?
I usually treat ‘signaling’ as the null hypothesis for human behavior: if the behavior doesn’t make sense on its own, I assume it is signaling.
If a person is attempting to maximize their health, there are behaviors that have a better cost:effectiveness ratio than buying organic. Most of the people I encounter who buy organic do few to none of these things.
If a person is attempting to signal some sort of association with a the “health-food/green-living/upper-class” tribe (one or all of them) then buying organic makes far more sense.
Having encountered more of the signaling behavior than the healthy behavior anecdotally, the signaling behavior is more likely. I haven’t invested any real effort into proving this (People could just be systematically acting in a sub-optimal fashion, for instance) but given how much of what people do is signaling behavior, it is my baseline explanation.
Um, are you considering convenience and other akrasic factors under “cost”, and allowing for perceived or anticipated “effectiveness”? If not, your analysis is probably incorrect. (Heck, it’s probably just incorrect when you consider what information people have about these behaviors.)
You should probably update more of it towards the parenthesized hypothesis, i.e. people behaving in sub-optimal ways by default. If this weren’t the default, there’d be little need for Less Wrong.
Not only that, most of the actual ‘health maximising’ behavior that you have seen has probably been done for signalling too.
(Note to self: Find a way to convince yourself that looking like a health maximiser is cool.)
Easiest way is to hang out among other health maximization signalers, I suppose. Then all you have to do is convince yourself that status within your cohort is cool.
This may be one of the main benefits of going to a gym. I also know that one of the reasons having a “gym buddy” is recommended is because then you are more likely to exercise because if you don’t then you are letting your buddy down. In fact, other than having someone to spot you, I suspect this is the primary benefit to having an exercise buddy.
I can also lift heavier weights for greater reps over more sets when I have a gym buddy. A combination of competitiveness and encouragement.
That seems unwarranted. That you don’t know why someone is doing something means only that you do not know the reason. I see no reason to think that when people say that organic produce is better than non-organic, that they are not merely saying what they actually think. If there was no-one who actually believed that, how could saying it be a signal?
There can only be such a thing as fake gold because there is such a thing as real gold.
I don’t think there are many well known good health intervention that cost no resources besides money.
Exercising takes willpower. Buying organic food instead of the regular food takes no willpower.
I think that depends entirely on the relative availability and social status of buying organic. If buying organic food requires driving an hour and spending twice as much (which it can, if you live in a small town in the midwest or other similar situations) then it definitely takes willpower to buy organic. Similarly, if you have certain debilitating physical or psychological conditions, just buying food in general may take willpower (although the willpower cost between non-organic and organic may be negligible.) Also, just knowing that there are foods out there that you can’t buy (given a pre-commitment to organic foods) can result in loss of willpower.
All things being equal, exercising probably takes more willpower than buying organic food, but there’s nothing necessary about that in individual cases, and commiting to buying organic food probably uses some small amount of willpower, regardless.
Ways this could be the case:
they don’t know about those other health-improving behaviours, or they misunderstand their effectiveness (or they believe they’re effective but they lack the corresponding alief);
they weigh their costs more heavily than you do (my grandma feels that if she couldn’t eat as much as she does, she would feel deprived of one of the main pleasures of life, whereas that would hardly bother me);
they correctly estimate their cost:effectiveness ratio, but they fail to adhere to them due to akrasia.
I’d guess that these effects are more relevant than signalling for a two-digit percentage of the people who buy organic food but don’t do other health-benefitting behaviours.
The thing is, not eating organic food is also a way of showing affiliation.
I think many more people eat non-organic food because it’s cheaper and/or more easily available.
Even “many more” is an understatement. I think the fraction of people who would prefer non-organic food over organic food if the prices and the convenience were the same would be tiny.
Yes, because most people agree organic food is higher status and signals caring about high-status causes, even if they choose not to spend extra money on it.
Seems like conservation of expected evidence should apply here. Not eating organic food does have signaling implications, but it’s so much more common that the signal should be a lot weaker.
This might not be true if you live in an area where organic produce is more common than average, though—like a lot of middle-to-upper-class urban areas.
I probably should have thought this through more carefully—there are people who think making a point of eating organic food is ridiculous, and talk about that opinion. At this point, I think they’re into signalling territory, but that’s about what they say more than about what they eat, I think.
Um. I suppose that some other food-eating behavior is also signaling, but I don’t think that the majority if non-organic food eaters are doing it because they conceive of themselves as people who don’t eat organic food and want to show off that fact. And I’m rather suspicious of the idea that not eating a selection of foods is signaling as a general rule. Like, someone could eat Italian food as a form of signaling (especially if they themselves identify as Italian) but someone who doesn’t eat Italian food is probably not doing it because they think of themselves as someone who “doesn’t eat Italian” and wants to signal that fact.
I suppose there are probably people out there who don’t eat organic as a way of showing affiliation, but I don’t think that encompasses any significant portion of those people who do not eat organic food.