Signals Intelligence
The things we communicate nonverbally
In the fall of 2007, I was taking CS2110, a notorious weed-out class for computer science majors at Georgia Tech. Looking back on it, it was one of the most interesting courses I took, but it was difficult and dealt with a lot of fundamental knowledge around circuitry and low level programming that made it extremely tedious. One day in class, my professor was lecturing to a room full of students that had clearly checked out. Participation was minimal with students mainly looking at unrelated content on their laptops1 and the professor, in his exasperation, asked the class, “if there was some kind of protocol here where you could press a few buttons in the right order and get your degree without actually learning anything, would you guys do it?”
Nobody answered the professor’s rhetorical question, while our collective shame mollified him enough to allow him to continue “teaching” the class, but I’m sure a lot of the students in that class gave it serious thought. At that moment in time, I certainly would have followed that procedure to get a high passing grade in that particular class. In fact, I would have done that procedure for a bunch of classes that I took while in college. Maybe not for the entire degree, I still wanted the college experience, after all, but 19 year old me would have pulled the trigger on it for at least half of the classes I took.
“When are we ever going to use this in the real world?” has been uttered in classrooms by countless whiny, obnoxious kids since the concept of school was invented. But the ironic part is that going to class on time, listening to the teacher, following their instructions, and doing the coursework within the allotted time without trying to rely too much on individualized instruction, and not being a huge pain in the ass is a huge part of working a real world job, where you are expected to do all of these things.
The college degree signals that you can do all of those things, with the reputation of the conferring institution as an enhancement of that signal. That signal gives employers a shortcut in the interview process. And because interviewing can be such a time consuming, arduous (expensive for the employer, soul crushing for the would-be employee) affair, anything that shortens that process is going to be valuable. So the act of quickly signaling that you can show up to work on time, take instruction and leadership from an authority figure, complete work to an acceptable standard on a deadline is valuable. Which makes college degrees are valuable.2
Everything That Goes Into a First Impression
We are constantly sending and receiving signals to and from society. Part of what makes communication so difficult is that each individual’s ability to perceive and interpret the signals they’re sending and the signals they’re receiving are different. And because we communicate more via subtext than text, our ability to effectively communicate to other people depends largely on things like people’s snap judgments of you. A picture is worth a thousand words. But the collective signals we send out to another person are worth a million.
Picture yourself wanting to buy a car and going into the dealership. As soon as you walk into the building, the salesman is sizing you up based on a multitude of factors. Things like your age, gender, race, clothes, body language, hairstyle are already being subconsciously processed by the salesman with the goal of determining the likelihood that they can sell you a vehicle. Once you exchange introductions, shake hands, and start talking about your intentions, that’s more information that’s being signaled to the salesman about your accent, education, communication skills, socioeconomic class, likely creditworthiness, knowledge level, confidence level, and your susceptibility to common sales techniques.
All of this is stuff that you’re broadcasting out to other people in society on a daily basis, regardless of what you’re actually saying to them. And that is the stuff upon which people are forming evaluations on you, either as an individual or as part of a larger group. And in the vast majority of instances, all of this is being done at a subconscious level. It’s not that we’re intentionally and ruthlessly analyzing everybody that comes in contact with us, but it is something that we’re doing on a constant basis because it’s just the way our brains are wired.
We’re wired this way because it’s in our nature to seek out relationships with other people to form strong tribes and affiliations. Oftentimes when people latch onto a popular new fad, fashion label, or toy, they’re doing it because they want to be included, or at the very least, not excluded. Nobody wants to be the only kid on the block that didn’t get a Furby for Christmas, or the kid that’s wearing hand me downs from a clothing label nobody’s ever heard of. We want to fit in and not be made fun of for being poor3. We accomplish this by mirroring the same signals that are other people are sending out.
There’s Levels to This Shit
But not all of this is being done subconsciously. Plenty of people consciously modulate and change the signals that they send out into the world. Most often, we associate people intentionally manipulating their signaling with Machiavellian schemers, con men, and other sordid folk. Intentionality and premeditation in this form of communication can often be used for fraudulent aims, but it’s also inherent in common pieces of advice like “dress for success”, “act like you’ve been there before”, and “kill them with kindness”.
Consciously changing your signals to more effectively communicate is a gamechanger for a lot of people. Relatively superficial changes in the way you present yourself to other people can open doors both in your personal and professional life. At this point, more cynical people might say that you’re putting on a front or persona, and that intentionally adopting a new posture is fake and manipulative, but these are things we are already doing at a subconscious level.
One of my favorite sayings is “any conversation between more than 2 people is always a performance”. When you break down the meaning of that quote, a lot of the weird things that people do suddenly make sense.
At the risk of stating the obvious, we are different things to different people. The relationship I have with one friend is different the one I have with another. In a one on one setting, the way I act is going to be different than when I’m with both. I have to keep both of them in mind instead of just one, and that changes how I act. Every time you add more and more people into the conversation, that equation changes and expands and as a result, the way you talk and behave is drastically different than when you’re just with one person.
The most obvious example is when politicians (or high level corporate executives) talk at a mass gathering. Their demeanor, appearance, mannerisms are highly choreographed. They know they’re being watched by lots of people, many of whom they don’t know and don’t necessarily trust. So what they say and do is the most bland and inoffensive stuff that effectively communicates very little to each person in the gathering. That’s why politicos say they don’t watch Presidential debates with the volume on. What the candidates are actually saying is meaningless. How they’re saying it and how they look when they’re saying it is what the voters are paying attention to.
All The Signals That’s Fit to Print
Signals aren’t just things that individuals broadcast out. At every level of human organization, we send out, signals to other people and groups either intentionally or unwittingly. Americans are fat. Europeans are lazy. Asians are subservient. Earlier, I wrote that we have a deep seated need to belong to a group. What ends up happening is that everyone within the group will mirror each others’ signals and amplify them. That’s why there are multiple studies that show likeminded groups tend to become more extreme in their views over time. There’s even a term for it: group polarization.
Our desire to belong to a group also has another effect: we like to put other people into groups. And when groups come into conflict with each other, the group polarization effect goes into overdrive. The need to enforce group conformity and excuse poor behavior by a member of the group becomes paramount. Conversely, demonizing people in the other group and highlight the worst behaviors of individuals in the other group is celebrated.
In certain circumstances, the strongest signals we send are based on what we aren’t saying as opposed to what we are. The editorial choices a newspaper makes when it comes to what makes the front page or how much coverage to give a certain issue can give its readership conniption fits. Currently, all the major newspapers are wrestling with their decisions related to covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A story that focuses on Israel is a story that could have been focused on Palestine and vice versa. If you’re a partisan of one side, that choice of coverage either feels validating or enraging.
If you ever have the misfortune of wading through newspaper article comments, oftentimes you’ll come across complaints of “why are you guys giving this so much coverage?” The complaint isn’t about whether the article is factual or interesting, the complaint is that a certain signal is being sent at the expense of another signal that could have been sent. There’s only so much attention span and signal reading capacity that even the choice of signals we send are in and of itself, a signal.
Signals All the Way Down? Or is it Noise?
Everything I’ve just written could essentially be summed up as (over)analysis of surface level interactions. Because signals are not substantive by themselves. The purpose of a signal is to quickly convey information to another person, but because signals can be faked, misinterpreted, or hijacked, they should not be used as a stringent vetting or prescreening tool.
People lie and exaggerate on their résumé. They can buy knockoffs of expensive brand clothing and accessories. They can leverage themselves up to their eyeballs in debt to drive around in a fancy used car. They can parrot ideas they’ve heard from other people and not understand why those ideas are important, or even believe in them. It’s a lot easier to mimic a signal than the underlying value it’s supposed to represent.
Signals are supposed to represent the actual important things about us. Things like our personality, intelligence, education, wealth, class, etc, but it will always take time to verify all those things. You still have to actually take the time and do the work to find out what the real deal is. Is that person’s confidence signaling something valuable? Or is it just part of a con?
Signals are cheap. Actions are costly. It can take a long time for an action to naturally occur, which is why people like to manufacture situations that require action. Sometimes it’s benign, like a skills test as part of a job interview. Sometimes it’s nefarious, like a person lying about a situation to see how their partner will react4. This stems from our tacit recognition that we need something more than a signal to really get to know another person.
Humans are tribal beings, but being part of a tribe is not enough. We need real and deep connections with other people, relationships that go beyond platitudes, signaling, and surface level interaction. Forming those relationships is one of the most fulfilling things that you can do, and it’s why we’re all out here sending countless signals to each other. So that we can have the chance to go beyond signaling and make a real connection.
Though the iPhone had debuted a few months before, this was before the time when smartphones became ubiquitous.
Some college degrees are more valuable than others, depending on the field of study and the school that grants it. Although it certainly seems like the signal is being weakened by political polarization and the increased public perception of unruly, entitled college students running amok on campus.
Kids can be ruthless, but they’re also much more honest in their interactions because they haven’t learned how (or why) to hide their feelings nearly as well as adults do.
The classic example is a woman lying to her boyfriend about being pregnant, but I’m relegating it to a footnote because I don’t want to appear to dunk on a specific gender or group without getting a chance to explain it first.
I've been that student (I brought sci-fi novels to read to class while I was taking notes). I haven't been that professor yet, thank goodness.