Robin assumes that anything done in public (visible to others) is for signaling, so for his assumptions, I think you’re right that this is the best answer.
I’m really questioning that assumption though. I think anything we do that species with less complex social environments also do would qualify as likely not for signaling: eating, sex, anti-predatory activities, etc.
And I think there’s value in distinguishing between things we do to strut (showing off the newest cell phone) and things we do because of required social signaling (mowing the lawn). Otherwise it seems too easy to say “Everything is signalling” and not really have learned much.
Well the fact of eating is clearly done mostly for non-signaling reasons, but since eating is social the details of how we eat are greatly influenced by signaling. So our beliefs about why we pick those details are unreliable, to the extent we tend to not be aware of signaling influences on behavoir.
I guess what I’m not sure about is, it seems (very nearly) everything we do is social, so (very nearly) everything would have signaling. Asking what signaling activities we do seems to be asking the wrong question.
Thinking of it from an evpsych point of view, I would expect that there is a mental organ of signaling (or the result of several organs) which attempts to signal at all possible opportunities. So whenever there are humans around, we seek the shortest path to the highest signal value.
Robin assumes that anything done in public (visible to others) is for signaling, so for his assumptions, I think you’re right that this is the best answer.
I’m really questioning that assumption though. I think anything we do that species with less complex social environments also do would qualify as likely not for signaling: eating, sex, anti-predatory activities, etc.
And I think there’s value in distinguishing between things we do to strut (showing off the newest cell phone) and things we do because of required social signaling (mowing the lawn). Otherwise it seems too easy to say “Everything is signalling” and not really have learned much.
Well the fact of eating is clearly done mostly for non-signaling reasons, but since eating is social the details of how we eat are greatly influenced by signaling. So our beliefs about why we pick those details are unreliable, to the extent we tend to not be aware of signaling influences on behavoir.
I agree with that.
I guess what I’m not sure about is, it seems (very nearly) everything we do is social, so (very nearly) everything would have signaling. Asking what signaling activities we do seems to be asking the wrong question.
Thinking of it from an evpsych point of view, I would expect that there is a mental organ of signaling (or the result of several organs) which attempts to signal at all possible opportunities. So whenever there are humans around, we seek the shortest path to the highest signal value.