Self-Signalling

I'm reading Dan Ariely's The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie To Everyone. One of the ideas being covered is making me think hard now about certain behaviours of people.
Ariely talks about the idea of self-signaling, a concept used by social scientists to explain behaviour that occurs when a person acts a certain way and influences themselves. Ariely describes this:

"The basic idea behind self-signaling is that despite what we tend to think, we don't have a very clear notion of who we are. We generally believe that we have a privileged view of our own preferences and character, but in reality we don't know ourselves that well (and definitely not as well as we think we do). Instead, we observe ourselves in the same way we observe and judge the actions of other people - inferring who we are and what we like from our actions."

The research the book describes is about running an experiment regarding wearing a branded product. They found that when the participants thought they were wearing counterfeit products (which they weren't), the participants were more likely to cheat and be dishonest at a certain task. This indicates some type of negative self-signaling where the individual loosens their moral restraint merely by the fact that they believed that they were wearing a fake product. Not only does this make people more likely to cheat, but it also causes them to think others are being dishonest as well.

While the above example is about self-signalling regarding behaviour, I am also thinking about actions that drive self-signalling or vice versa, self-signalling behaviour driving actions. Would I do something because it would make me feel or think better about myself? I think it is a good topic to ponder on and see how the subconscious can make decisions for us without conscious thought. (On a side note, this is related to self-perception theory by Daryl Bem).

Usually people only think about social-signaling where their actions and behaviour are driven by what they want to reflect to the people around them, however, with exposure to this idea, now I find myself having to think how my own behaviour is driven by what I wear, surround myself with, and the actions I take.

I find myself considering the relationship of self-signalling with behavioural priming.

Researching more about signalling theory in general, I am really fascinated with how signalling is ingrained in the psyche of all life and not just humans.

Psychological Books

I'm always interested in understanding perception and how people come to their decisions, rational or not. Having knowledge of how human psychology operates gives me a better perspective on addressing these needs. Also, it's just cool to understand how people tick. =D

I have recently read some books on the subject that have really helped me gain better insight into understanding the processes that our brain progresses through in making a decision, as well as how to create subtle cues in order to influence a person in making a choice.

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness
by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein


This book and website (nudges.org) is focused on behavioural economics. This topic is somewhat controversial when it is applied in practice, a recent example of this is the recent ban of soda drinks of over 16 ounces in New York City. This is related to the portion sizes that consumers are given. People behave in very odd ways when given options regarding food. The book has a chapter on mindless choosing that deals with the topic and specifically on a case where the size of the container of the food influences the behaviour of how much people will believe they should eat/drink, regardless of how hungry the person actually is. This is correlated to the option at any fast food outlet where having the option of having a larger sized meal is a small cost, and most people will tend to choose it just because the perceived value is too much of a deal to pass up.

I could go on regarding all the topics in this book, but I think you should read this book for yourself first.

How We Decide

by Jonah Lehrer

A dive into the decision-making process and a dip into neuroscience to discern the processes and the differences between our emotional brain and our rational brain. I am really interested in Lehrer's theory of how the mind evolves from rationality when learning something and then when enough hours have been put in to become an "expert", then the mind changes gears and shifting that learned behaviour into instinct and modifies that learning it into the emotional brain so that the thought process takes shortcuts into feelings to provide a faster option for the brain.

There is also explanation into the perils of when our brain doesn't operate properly and is fooled into making poor decisions which is also highlighted in the book below by David McRaney.

This is a good book that goes through the popular economic studies but also goes into the neuroscience of explaining how the different parts of the brain behaves and how it processes information leading the person in ultimately making their decision. It gives a general overview of the sections of the brain that are the key parts in decision making without making it overly scientific.

You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

by David McRaney

This book is a great crash course in understanding the pitfalls of human logic. The other books I'm writing about cite the same studies but this is a more succinct guide on understanding the tricks that fool the brain. 

Fast, and easy read and I recommend reading this book first to get familiar with a lot of the economic studies that most economics books reference.

Am I boring because I like to learn?

I spent most of yesterday night scouring and devouring wikipedia. The topic you say? Carl Jung. The psychologist.... well... psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology, or similarly, Jungian psychology

I've been meaning to read into psychology a lot sooner, but I just managed to do so now. I'm very interested in Jung's work based on what I've absorbed yesterday. His theories of archetypes, collective unconscious, duality(self vs shadow, and anima vs animus), and of course, dream interpretation. I could go into each of these topics for hours and delve into the specifics and interpretations, as I'm so fascinated by his work. From what I have noticed, Jung seems to be more focused in personalizing a person's psyche to be interacting with the collective unconscious and behaves differently each day depending on daily interactions, like dreams. His approach is contrary to the Freudian train of thought where each person is merely a definition of their past experiences. Freud's interpretation of dreams as merley an outlet for the subconscious really destroys the view that dreams can be a form of communication to other people.

Well, I'm a dreamer, in the non-literal sense. I have to go with Jung and seek spirituality in our dreams, to follow Freud and believing dreams are the mere musings of our subconscious would shatter my optimism for a deeper meaning in the subject. Besides, Jung's theories make much cooler plot devices in movies than Freud's Oedipus complexes or his crap of psychosexual development.