Is Modesty a Costly Signal?

As you may already know, costly signals are those costly behaviors that people engage in, in order to obtain status. They must be visible for others and, of course costly for the signaler. At the same time they either have to be desired by others or to signal a trait that is desired by others (others = potential friends and allies or potential mates). There are many costly signals ranging from conspicuous consumption to creativity and generosity.
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Recently I have been thinking if modesty is a particular case of costly signal? I mean modesty as a personal trait, not as an attribute of an object. For example a modest income is certainly not attractive while a modest IQ is for sure not desirable. I refer to modesty as the behavior of people who don’t brag, who don’t take too much credit for what they represent to others (i.e. personalities that don’t abuse their VIP status) or even modesty in the sense of allowing other (lower status) individuals to feel good about themselves – i.e. not patronizing them.
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If your neighbor is a high status person, but still goes to the supermarket by bike and drives a “normal” car, you will feel relatively better about yourself because he doesn't show how high status he is.
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Let’s see if modesty meets the criteria for being a costly signal
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First it is costly for the person exhibiting it. Now the costs of modesty are two-fold: on one hand modesty requires a certain amount of self-control which costs energy; on the other hand, there are opportunity costs for the signaler – he or she forgoes benefits that would have been obtained if modesty would have not been used.
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Second, is modesty desirable in itself or does it signal a desirable trait? For sure, modesty in itself is not desirable by others… I can’t imagine someone wishing to be more modest or having a modest partner… however the absence of modesty is undesirable… some people don’t want a partner who brags all day long how great he or she is. On the other hand, modesty implies, as previously stated, a lot of self-control, self-confidence and a sense of achievement or self-fulfillment… usually frustrated people are not modest at all, even the opposite is true. Now, self-control, confidence and self-fulfillment are desirable traits for long term mating partners. Thus, modesty meets the criterion of signaling a desirable trait, but only for long term mating.
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Third, is modesty visible? This is a tricky one. Being modest implies not showing what one has. At the same time, in order to be appreciated, modesty needs to be visible. This leads to the conclusion that there are two types of modesty: A. unobserved modesty which can be defined as not showing high status or deferring high status benefits due to the fact that high status is not exhibited in any way – it is not visible. B. observed modesty which can be defined as not abusing high status and deferring high status benefits done by persons who are known for having high status (i.e. football stars).
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If a well-known high status person exhibits modesty, it is for sure the second type of modesty – observed, thus visible. Moreover, exhibiting the first type of modesty is virtually impossible because, at least to a certain audience, the high status is known (e.g. Family, friends etc.). This makes even unobserved modesty visible, at least for some people.
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The conclusion is that at least in theory modesty meets the criteria of being a costly signal for attracting long term partners.

Mating Reality Check

At ERIM there are countless occasions when I am asked what my research interests are. When I say that it is “mating related behavior” or “the psychology of mating” I get the feeling that the audience has a hesitant reaction… something like “yeah, but is that important… is that actually an area of research, especially in business administration?”.
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Of course, mating, at least apparently, is not at the core of business activities and thus it might not be worthy of the attention of business researchers. During one class discussion I was even told that my research project does not have too many practical implications… Now here are some arguments why research in mating psychology and its implications in day to day life are important.
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First, every living human is the result of (successful) mating, even the ones that laugh at my interests. Is this important enough?
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Second, many research areas are important because of the fact that they investigate something that is related to a big market. One such example is research in finance and incentive schemes etc. Taking into account that the mating market is about 6 billion people (assuming that 1 billion are below mating age), I’d say it is a very large market. Moreover, mating exists (and has existed) even where financial markets and other forms of “modern” business don’t exist.
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Third, a huge number of behaviors are mating driven. Of course some prefer to say that there is no (direct) link between, let’s say, dancing or getting a Master degree and mating. I don’t think so… one would be amazed what the mating INSTINCT can make people do… Regarding the size of the market influenced by mating, just think about all the products and services that are bought to show the love for the significant other. Then add all the cosmetics markets, part of the car market, most of the fashion market and many more… is that big enough?
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Fourth, no other topic has received this much coverage in culture and no other topic accounts for a bigger chunk of well-being as mating does. Of course poems and songs don’t talk explicitly about mating, rather the pseudonyms of “love” and “romance” are used. Yes, in case anyone missed the point, romantic love is the more polite, more conventional way of saying “mating related behavior”.
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Fifth, mating is extremely practical. If anyone sees first the theoretical part of mating, then that person has lived in total isolation.

Honey I love you, but… - Part II Working restrictions

The countries from the “old guard” in the EU imposed restrictions on their national labor markets for the citizens of some of the newly entered countries (including mine) as a temporary measure to protect their work force, despite the fact that one of the main guiding principles of the EU is the free movement of labor. One exception from this was Spain, which now facing a record unemployment rate of 20% has imposed restrictions for the Romanians and Bulgarians. In spring The Netherlands government wanted to impose even more restrictions for the season laborers from Eastern Europe. Again, it’s a case of “honey I love you but….” Let’s see why.
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First, the argument that these restrictions actually protect the local population’s jobs is false because for any reasonable human being to fight unemployment by keeping away the people that want to work makes no sense. As long as the jobs that the non-natives get are legal, it means that they get at least the minimum salary according to the local legislation, meaning that no-one stopped a local from taking that job for the same salary as the non-local.
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Moreover, the fact that one is a foreigner in a country does not necessarily give an advantage. I don’t really imagine a job that has as requirements to not speak the local language (or speak it badly), to be at least 1500 km away from home, to be separated from your family and to live in poor conditions (as most migrant workers do).
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On the other hand the legal migrant workers bring a lot of advantages to the host country. For example they consume in that country, they pay taxes to the host country’s budget and, why not, they bring some cultural richness. Also because in many cases they get the jobs that the locals don’t want for some salaries that the locals consider to be offending, the migrant workers are a source for lower costs for companies in the host country which can translate in smaller prices for the local consumers or / and higher profits for the companies that employed them.
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But, of course, it’s easier to say “the foreigners are bad and they are the source of our problems… there is nothing wrong with us”. Well, when you get 20% unemployment rate and moreover there is a long history of high unemployment, then for sure there is something wrong with you.
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The truth is that no politician will say: “get off your asses, you’re out of the social welfare or unemployment aid” because they will lose votes, whereas the migrants that actually want to work don’t have the right to vote.

Honey I love you, but… or some of the EU Hypocrisy – Part One: The National Debts Issue

In recent months I’ve noticed many examples of hypocrisy in our beloved EU concerning many issues, but mainly on the financial problems of some EU member states, Greece having the un-honor of being the one that got most of the publicity and on the non-acceptance of Romania and Bulgaria in the Schengen agreement (our friends the Finish and Dutch governments said no). Also today I’ve heard on the news that Slovakia rejected the Euro-zone agreement on increasing the funds available as aid for the member countries..
Well, let’s imagine the EU as a big family in which there are bilateral relationships that are better or worse, but the family stays together because it is in everyone’s best interest to do so, even if they don’t admit it publicly. Of course in this family the members are not equal, although everybody pretends that they are, at least when in public. There are the two seniors, the smaller brothers and of course the cousins and some distant cousins from the country-side who are weaker, but extremely useful. And in such a family from time to time one member says to another: “you’re family and I love you, but…”.
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Let’s talk more to the concrete side: Portugal, Ireland and Greece have some serious problems in financing their national debts. Since they use the Euro if one of them (or any other Euro-zone member state) will be unable to pay their debts the whole Euro zone will suffer… so the bigger and richer family members came to their aid… or at least pretended to do so. I will not enter into to many details on how those debts came to be, but let’s just say that the countries in question are not the only one responsible.
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Why all the big fuss about these debts and especially about the big favor that the richer countries promised? Well, yes, the countries in question need the help, but the helpers will not just give money away and they don’t. In fact there is a power game concerning many hundreds of billions of euros in which the ones that have the money want to earn the most. How is that?.
First, one huge hypocrisy is the impression that the helpers actually give money to the countries with problems. NO! In fact the richer ones give loans to the needy ones and every Euro that is lended comes with an interest rate… so eventually the helped ones will actually pay a price to the helpers..
Second, the governments that lend money impose certain conditions to the beneficiaries. Some might say that it’s normal because the creditors want to make sure they get their money back. On the other side these conditions have other favorable effects for the creditors. The first one is that overall they actually decrease even more the competitively of the “helped” economies in comparison with the helpers. This might be argued, but in a world with fewer resources the competitive advantage counts even more than in an expanding world. The second one are the privatizations of state owned companies, institutions and selling some of the state owned properties such as real estate. What should be considered here is that in order for something to be sold, someone must buy, and the big question is who is going to buy and at what price. Regarding the price we can be sure that it’s not going to be a huge one since when in need anyone will sell cheaper. Regarding the buyers, I’m not very confident that the investment fund from Burkina Faso will come to acquire Greek or Portuguese companies, rather the big corporations from the richer countries in the EU will do so..
In the long run, who actually wins?.
But if it’s in the favor of the “big brothers”, why don’t they just help the “poor cousins” and get it on with? Again… it’s a power game. The deeper the needy get in need, the more providential and profitable the salvation is. Another very important reason is that in many ways the uncertain and apparently unfavorable situation is in fact in favor of the big ones. Let’s just consider that due to these issues the Euro gets weaker comparing to the USD and to the Asian main currencies. Isn’t this an advantage for the big exporters of Europe (Germany, The Netherlands and France)?. A slightly weaker currency is an advantage for the exporters and a disadvantage of the importers… so Again… who wins?.After almost endless debates there is finally a project to actually do something to improve the situation. The 18 Euro-zone member states (22 if we count Vatican, Monaco, Andora, San-Marino) decided to increase the funds available for the governments in need. In order to do so the agreement should be ratified by all countries involved..
Now, today, one country says NO. It is Slovakia, one of the latest adopters of the Euro and a country that has a population half of that of Paris. Why the parliament of Slovakia said NO? Because of some fights in the government coalition and the opposition parties didn’t miss the opportunity. I don’t mean to undermine Slovakia as a legitimate state member of the EU, but due to some petty interests in a small country some really big issues that concern the entire continent are at risk. The opposition parties in Slovakia might get their fair share of seats in the parliament after the elections, but they might come in power when it is already much worse than it is now..
Another issue about Slovakia and many other states that form time to time say that they don’t want to participate in a commune effort is that due to the “bigness” of the issue, if one says NO, they get immediate attention. Let’s be honest… many people don’t even know where Slovakia is on the map (nor do they know where are Jordan or Macedonia) and what is the difference between Slovakia and Slovenia (similar with Paraguay and Uruguay)..
Unfortunately we are about 500 million citizens of the EU trapped in a political structure that seems to have been built with the best intentions, but it’s as easy to manage as a horde of wild cats while crossing a river..
Pointing fingers and making stands is very easy. Of course the Geeks and the Portuguese have their faults, of course the government of Ireland sacrificed the state budget to save a bank and now they are in trouble, but these are not the issues. The main issue is if we are together or not..
So… Honey, I love you, but… If you say that to your significant other, to your brother or sister, there is only one outcome… and the worst thing in difficult times is to be alone….
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I’ll be back soon with the Schengen issue – the second part of this post.

Our first picture from the Wedding

This is the first wedding picture that we got our "mouse" on.

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How to get smarter … and costly signaling theory.

About two years ago I wrote a post on this blog on “How to get smarter” (in Romanian) and every few days I get visits from people who searched “How to get smarter” in Romanian. I even got visits from Iceland, Japan, Switzerland, Australia and many other countries apart from Romania. In the last two months the number of visits that the blog got through googling these words increased (the blog is in the top 3 google results depending on exact combination of words).
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Initially I thought that more and more people are looking for ways in which to increase their intelligence or cognitive capacity or whatever you want to call “being smart”. This is not a bad thing, wright? It’s good if more and more people want to be smarter and look for ways of achieving this… or at least it’s a good thing if more and more people realize that they are not smart (enough).
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A few days ago I discovered what could be a much more plausible reason for the increased number of visits to this blog in search of ways to enhance one’s IQ. On the Romanian Radio station that I listen there is a commercial for Vodafone with a famous singer that says that if you buy a smartphone you’ll get smarter “automatically”. I guess that many of the people who ended up on this blog were searching for ways to get smarter without buying a smartphone which is expensive or maybe to get confirmation that owning one would lead to an increase in intelligence.
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Intelligence is a very important personal trait in social life and everyone (sane) wants to have it at a high level and display it even more. The reason for displaying intelligence is quite simple: everyone wants to have smart friends, smart spouses and IQ is a very good predictor in many things that we generally want to have such as job performance – good salary and successful mating (healthy kids that actually survive and don’t become junkies or end up in jail).
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Now there are various ways in which to display intelligence. Some people chose to buy complicated to use products like smartphones, or by getting MBA’s, PhD’s, Master degrees etc. Of course that smartphones and MBAs don’t display just IQ and these aren’t the only ways to show one’s intelligence, but this is not what I want to talk about. Some signals are more or less fake – they signal a trait that it not actually that high. For example one can buy a smartphone and not be very intelligent at all (he or she just stole some money and went directly to the store). Flashing out a brand new High-tech gadget will signal to his or her acquaintances that that person is smart enough to get the money needed and to know how to use the 10.000 features of the gizmo.
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Unfortunately for those who use false signals, there are much more natural and simpler ways to signal a trait such as intelligence. One of these is conversation. Let’s suppose that our dude that just bought a flashy last generation smartphone with 11.001 features and applications goes on a date with a young lady that was unconsciously attracted to him by the gadget. They go for some drinks, a nice walk etc. He can’t just stand next to her playing with his alleged IQ extension and not say a word. He has to talk to her or at least mimic a decent conversation. Now, talking and communication have been around far longer than electronics and we know how to unconsciously decode these more natural signals.
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So our guy that has spent at least 500 Euros on an intelligence showing piece of electronics has to prove in a very ancient way (conversation) that he’s actually smart. If the conversation is at a very low level of intellectual engagement, then he’ll not get a second date. Of course there might be some exceptions such as: the girl is less intelligent than him and she’ll perceive him as better fitted for mating; or the girl just wants a short (rather embarrassing) adventure.

Plastic Money

Here’s something that you most likely you didn’t know about Romania:

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Romania is the only country in the Northern Hemisphere that has plastic money and I don’t mean bank cards. The Romanian banknotes (bills) are made out of polymer (aka plastic). The first polymer banknote was introduced in Romania in 1999 with the occasion of the total Sun eclipse. Starting from the early 2000ds the National Bank of Romania gradually replaced the paper (which actually is cotton) bills with plastic ones.

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Another thing that you might not know about the Romanian money is that there is no currency unit coin. The national currency of Romania is the Leu (which means lion) and there is no coin with the value of 1 Leu. Instead there is a banknote with that value.