Why do peacocks grow such an elaborate tail to attract a mate? After all, their unwieldy plumage makes them much more liable to being eaten by a predator or killed by a more agile rival. Charles Darwin was content to attribute it to the peahen’s love of beauty. His co-conceiver of natural selection, Alfred Russell Wallace, wasn’t having that: “How can we imagine that an inch in the tail of the peacock…would be noticed and preferred by the female?” he wrote to Darwin. Instead, Wallace, more of a utilitarian, suggested the answer had to lie in the tail’s usefulness.
The question puzzled biologists for ages. Why have so many species, not just peafowl, evolved mating signals that seemingly endanger themselves? In the 1970s, the evolutionary biologist Amotz Zahavi proposed a radical theory: animals evolve handicapping behaviors to signal trust. Squandering a resource or making themselves more vulnerable to predation shows the female that their genes must be fitter than any sexual rival. If they weren’t, the individual would have already perished. Thus, inefficiency or impairment are markers of honesty; hence, this is a form of “honest signalling.” There’s even a theory that this crosses species; some gazelles apparently start by trotting away from an attacking lion.
Why mention this? The same logic applies to much of human behavior. It’s the reason why pop stars dress so appallingly (they’re so cool that they don’t need to try to look cool), and why tech-billionaires dress like they’ve bought their entire wardrobe from a charity store (they can dress like they’re poor because they don’t need to play the sartorial sparring of the wealthy). It’s also why some people choose to flaunt their expensive jewellery in very dangerous neighborhoods (“If I wasn’t a badass, I couldn’t get away with making myself vulnerable to theft, so obviously it’s unwise to start a fight with me”).
Some have even argued that this is a reason why humans apologize, why we give gifts, why we engage in altruism, why it takes so long to publish a book, and why babies cry so loudly. (We evolved from animals that frequently had to choose to feed one or two offspring at the expense of the rest. The infant that could afford to waste its energy by crying the loudest, thus making itself vulnerable, was signalling its vigor, so it was the one worthy of investing in.)
It also explains most conspicuous consumption. A millionaire driving a well-shock-absorbed SUV along a pot-holed street of a Southeast Asian city is being sensible. It’s what anyone would do if they could, so it doesn’t turn many heads. But a millionaire who drives a $200,000 Lamborghini down the same streets! He knows that it’ll quickly be riddled with dents and will likely need a trip to the mechanics every few weeks, so he is making a statement: “I’m so rich that I can afford to pay to regularly repair a supercar. If I wasn’t rich enough, I wouldn’t do this. So I incur a disadvantage, which shows I’m not bluffing.”
I’m not the first to make these observations, but they have prompted me to consider how they apply to human rights and social issues. The “handicap principle,” as it’s called, seems to inform how we judge political actors. The fact that someone has impaired their own happiness, freedom, or life (and perhaps that of their family) signals their honesty to the cause. Think Aung San Suu Kyi in the 1990s. Which U.S. presidential candidate has lost after an attempted assassination? Most protests are a form of “costly signalling,” another name for the phenomenon: “you can trust that our concerns are sincere since we’ve bothered to turn up on the streets and are risking arrest or worse.”
Likewise, a company or government that sticks with a social cause in the face of a diplomatic rift or consumer boycott is signalling its commitment. For decades (well, up until Donald Trump entered office), U.S. presidents had framed democratic societies as so superior and moral that they could tolerate what might be considered the disability of dissent. Hence, an apparent disadvantage was actually an honest signal of their fitness. As then-President Barack Obama told the United Nations in 2015: “I realize that in many parts of the world there is a different view – a belief that strong leadership must tolerate no dissent…. I disagree. I believe a government that suppresses peaceful dissent is not showing strength; it is showing weakness and it is showing fear.”
It’s a mistake to palm this off as mere “virtue signalling.” What human activity isn’t a form of signalling? It’s in every interaction and most thoughts. (Even the use of “virtue signalling” is intended to signal something by the speaker to the audience.) However, it does seem that only some possess the “virtue” needed to signal. There is the suggestion that people can only really believe in, let alone agitate for, certain rights once they’ve reached a certain level of wealth or status. For example, some “experts” reckon that environmental consciousness kicks in once you’re near-middle-class or that frivolities like free speech or multi-party democracy (those “bourgeois rights,” according to communists) only really matter to those with three square meals a day. Only when you stop stressing about whether there is food on the table tomorrow can you care about what happens next month, next year, or in 20 years.
I find this dubious. Instead, it seems more probable that the way beliefs are signaled depends on wealth or status. For instance, a CEO of a large corporation who commutes to work by bicycle could be making a public statement about his environmental credentials. After all, every onlooker knows that he could afford to commute by helicopter or luxury car, and that doing so would be the faster, easier, and more convenient option than biking. Thus, the bike-riding CEO can engage in “costly signalling.” If a low-paid factory worker commutes by bike, no onlooker would even consider for a moment whether or not he’s trying to signal an environmental statement. Maybe he is, but everyone would just assume that he can’t afford a car.
It’s probably also the reason why so many anti-elitist politicians hail from the elite. A poor person with no family, no money, and no job who goes up against “the system” doesn’t inspire as much trust. However heartfelt their commitment, they have little to lose. But a middle-class lawyer or a multi-millionaire who promises to tear down the establishment on behalf of the oppressed! Well, they have so much to lose, so we tend to think that they must be honest in their convictions.