Why Are Courting Signals Ambiguous?
People are usually not very direct when flirting, courting, etc. For example, people usually do not just say "Do you want to have sex?". Instead flirting and courting tend to be extremely complex processes involving much ambiguity, subtle error-prone interpretation, and complex analysis. It is interesting to make up armchair explanations for this ambiguity. 1) Plausible Deniability - people want to flirt without being caught flirting, or without clear evidence that can be reported to third parties. This attached people to consider "cheating," and unattached people to not look "desperate." 2) Social Ability Sorting - Ambiguity allows shoppers to sort for people with the cognitive and social skills to read subtle signals correctly. Such skills come from innate ability, and from more successful experience in flirting/courting/mating. 3) Confidence Sorting - Ambiguity creates a cost of misjudging interest. This cost is lower for those who are more confident that others will be interested in them. Such people are more likely to play. 4) Cost Sorting - Ambiguity makes courting take longer, a cost which might be larger for the attached and the poor, who are less desired. Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030- 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
Re: Why Are Courting Signals Ambiguous?
Robin Hanson's post was very interesting. I have wondered that ambiguous signals might play another role. Suppose all women like men who wear red ties because those men, for some reason, are nicer or richer than others. Assume that this is the only way women can tell the nice guys from the jerks(the men who are not nice). So women would avoid men who don't wear red ties. But if women told men that they like men who wear red ties, then the jerks(the men who are not nice) could wear red ties. If all men wore red ties, then women could not tell which guys were really nice. So you might not want to give away what signals you are looking for or what they mean. In your mating, dating, flirting activity you wuold not come right out and say what you are looking for. Cyril Morong San Antonio College
Re: Why Are Courting Signals Ambiguous?
Variants of your option 1: People want to be able to find out if the other party is interested without committing themselves, for two reasons: a. The status of "rejected suitor" is different from, and to some degree incompatible with, the status of friend--and they want to preserve the latter option as long as possible. b. Rejection hurts. -- David Friedman Professor of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Re: Why Are Courting Signals Ambiguous?
Robsin Hanson wrote: People are usually not very direct when flirting, courting, etc. For example, people usually do not just say "Do you want to have sex?". One reason could be that some groups of individuals, by virtue of their natural (or artificial!) physical or other attributes, and by virtue of the way human tastes have evolved, might have some kind of market power with respect to the ability to withhold sex from the other. So a member of one of these groups who simply asks "do you want to have sex?" is effectively engaging in price undercutting, and is breaking the implicit (or explicit) collusive agreement that exists between members of this group. Such an individual, who lowers the price in such an obvious way, raises the risk of social stigmatization by other members of the group and may even be banished from the group, thereby losing the privileges of being a cartel member. Therefore members of the cartel have an interest in giving out ambiguous signals which, on the one hand, say "I'm interested in having sex with you" to potential mates, but which, on the other hand cannot be detected or easily interpreted by fellow cartel members. I guess this is kind of a Green-Porter theory of ambiguity in mating and dating. Alex Robson
