Minor quibble: the conscious reasons for someone’s actions may not be signaling, but that may be little more than a rationalization for an unconsciously motivated attempt to signal some quality.
If you read the rest of the comment to which you are replying, I pointed out that it’s effectively best to assume that nobody knows why they’re doing anything, and that we’re simply doing what’s been rewarded.
That some of those things that are rewarded can be classed as “signaling”, may actually have less to do (evolutionarily) with the person exhibiting the behavior, and more to do with the person(s) rewarding or demonstrating those behaviors.
IOW, we may not have an instinct to “signal”, but only to imitate what we see others responding to, and do more of what gives appropriate responses. That would allow our motivation to be far less conscious, for one thing.
(Somewhat-unrelated point: the most annoying thing about trying to study human motivation is the implicit assumption we have that people should know why they do things. But when viewed from an ev. psych perspective, it makes more sense to ask why is there any reason for us to know anything about our own motivations at all? We don’t expect other animals to have insight into their own motivation, so why would we expect that, at 5% difference from a chimpanzee, we should automatically know everything about our own motivations? It’s absurd.)
I’m not sure that the class of all actions that are motivated by signaling is the same as (or a subset of) the class of all actions that are rewarded. At least, if by rewarded, you mean something other than the rewards of pleasure and pain that the brain gives.
If you read the rest of the comment to which you are replying, I pointed out that it’s effectively best to assume that nobody knows why they’re doing anything, and that we’re simply doing what’s been rewarded.
That some of those things that are rewarded can be classed as “signaling”, may actually have less to do (evolutionarily) with the person exhibiting the behavior, and more to do with the person(s) rewarding or demonstrating those behaviors.
IOW, we may not have an instinct to “signal”, but only to imitate what we see others responding to, and do more of what gives appropriate responses. That would allow our motivation to be far less conscious, for one thing.
(Somewhat-unrelated point: the most annoying thing about trying to study human motivation is the implicit assumption we have that people should know why they do things. But when viewed from an ev. psych perspective, it makes more sense to ask why is there any reason for us to know anything about our own motivations at all? We don’t expect other animals to have insight into their own motivation, so why would we expect that, at 5% difference from a chimpanzee, we should automatically know everything about our own motivations? It’s absurd.)
I’m not sure that the class of all actions that are motivated by signaling is the same as (or a subset of) the class of all actions that are rewarded. At least, if by rewarded, you mean something other than the rewards of pleasure and pain that the brain gives.