Hmm… One way to approach this would be, instead of looking for examples of people trying to signal, try to get inside the heads of your target impressee. What would really, genuinely impress the sort of person you’re trying to impress? What would impress you?
I imagine, for example, that someone who knows a lot about wine, or is conversant in the pros and cons of the driver experience in luxury cars, is clearly signalling a lot of leisure time and resources to pursue the habit, and I’d be more impressed by that person than by someone who simply brags about the expensive car or wine they just bought. Of course, that kind of approach may work on a limited range of people; you’d want to pick a domain that your impressees know enough about to recognize a real connoisseur.
What would impress me is someone more interested in personal development than signaling their status with wasteful expenditure and needless material goods. :-)
This also works on a sadly limited number of people.
I’m pretty sure there are expensive types of personal development; even expensive types of personal development that aren’t “wasteful” if you don’t want to count pure signaling as something worth paying for.
So another way of thinking about the problem would be “what high status training could I simply buy?” This has the added bonus of circumventing the money awkwardness at the operational end.
Hmm… One way to approach this would be, instead of looking for examples of people trying to signal, try to get inside the heads of your target impressee. What would really, genuinely impress the sort of person you’re trying to impress? What would impress you?
I imagine, for example, that someone who knows a lot about wine, or is conversant in the pros and cons of the driver experience in luxury cars, is clearly signalling a lot of leisure time and resources to pursue the habit, and I’d be more impressed by that person than by someone who simply brags about the expensive car or wine they just bought. Of course, that kind of approach may work on a limited range of people; you’d want to pick a domain that your impressees know enough about to recognize a real connoisseur.
What would impress me is someone more interested in personal development than signaling their status with wasteful expenditure and needless material goods. :-)
This also works on a sadly limited number of people.
I’m pretty sure there are expensive types of personal development; even expensive types of personal development that aren’t “wasteful” if you don’t want to count pure signaling as something worth paying for.
So another way of thinking about the problem would be “what high status training could I simply buy?” This has the added bonus of circumventing the money awkwardness at the operational end.