Dating and hiring signals

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One of the examples that comes up in the Robin Hanson podcast [hyperlink] concerns dating. If the point is to signal to the person that you are healthy, wealthy, and intelligent, why not just bring your health records, your bank statement, and your SAT scores?

One hypothesis, which may be implicit in what Robin is saying, is that you would not want to date someone who went for those sorts of signals. Somebody who will hook up with you based on such simple information could just as easily cheat on you or dump you when someone else comes along and provides similar information. We want to go out with people who are “discerning,” which in this context means that they signal a habit of processing other people’s expensive signals. That in turn makes it more likely that they will be loyal, which is a quality that Robin thinks we often need to signal.

So you have what I might call co-operative signaling. You signal to me that you are looking for “deep” signs of my health, intelligence, or whatever. I take that as a signal that you are into long-term relationships. So I then go through the rituals of dating and signaling.

The issue is whether one can tell this story in the job market. If you are an employer who gives an intelligence test rather than looking for a Harvard degree, you may very well hire more efficiently. But to me as a potential employee, that means that you might replace me quickly and easily with someone else who does well on the intelligence test. Instead, if you require an expensive signal, that might make me confident that you are more loyal. So the co-operative signaling arrangement is that you signal that you make long-term investments in employees by using a Harvard degree as a hiring criterion rather than intelligence test, and I in turn signal by getting a Harvard degree.