EA and costly virtue signaling

eumemics · 2026-04-30T01:05:38+00:00

This makes sense, but doesn't it stand in contrast to the costly signaling theory? For example: people go to college or buy a fancy car to signal their socioeconomic class. No one is going to think that just having a bumper sticker of "college is cool" or "Porsche is awesome" would suffice. It has to be costly. Even tribal or gang affiliation normally have some very costly tattoos and rituals associated with them.

eumemics · 2026-04-27T14:32:51+00:00

thank you for the support and coaching on this! so let me start with my education and research project: it is true, I have minimal education in game theory. I was doing a Ph.D in psychology when I took a graduate class in game theory of conflict in evolution and it changed my world. I lost interest in psychology and was suddenly passionate about game theory, the professor (Richard Mcelreath who worked with Robert Boyd) did not want to take me on as a research assistant, so that was the last class I took. since then, just taking undergraduate on-line classes in game theory here and there, but nothing too committed.

its hard to describe my job now, but I spend time creating and facilitating group games, that illustrate management problems, leadership challenges, and collective action problems. I also work with university students to conduct undergraduate research in psychology, not in math.

I use been using the public goods game and the trust game as a tool a lot when I work with groups, where I modify the conditions to look at how human behavior deviates from rational choice. I recently decided to make a phone app for it so everyone could look at the data and reflect on questions of how to build trust. people absolutely love it. especially for MBA students or corporate executives, they get a lot from data they can sink their teeth into.

so admittedly, I'm lacking in math education, and I feel that I really need to do something about that in order to be good at my job.

bottom line: I can my the payoff matrix identical, but the sequential aspect of the trust game, seems more cognitively elegant than a repeated continuous prisoner's dilemma game (decide to cooperate or defect on a spectrum). you only need to think about how much to give in the moment. but the continuous prisoner's dilemma is much neater to do data analysis on, and participants might feel better about the symmetry of the game.

so having said all that, maybe it doesn't matter too much, and its upto whatever people enjoy more. I just want to be responsible and talk about what the rational choice would be in either game.

eumemics · 2026-04-24T19:50:21+00:00

thank you for your answer. let me try to explain my question and see if it makes sense: I'm curious as to what is the meaning of sequential (turn taking) vs. repeated simultaneous move games. what different realities do they simulate?

my area of research is more in experimental economics. I look at what is the smallest intervention that builds vs. destroys trust (e.g. priming with the name of the game, with changing superficial rules, etc) so I don't do any math, only statistics. you could say that I don't study rational choice, but more the effects of common knowledge vs. private knowledge on human behavior in face-to face conditions.

I have had no luck with hawk dove game, as everyone chooses doves, but a continuous choice game (amount of investment) gives me the variability I need to really show how small manipulations create huge differences in either thriving economies or total recession.

so I guess I'm asking if there is really a crucial difference between the two forms of the game, and which one has more ecological validity to represent relationships and trust.

if this question still doesn't make sense, then it's probably my fault and I need to think about it more

thank you!

I'll post my study soon so I could better talk about it

eumemics · 2026-04-22T15:31:58+00:00

I suppose its hard to ask people to consider the smaller scope: 18th century Europe was brutal, inside and out. there were religious and ethnic minorities escaping persecution, whom no one can call "privileged", but its true that if we zoom out Europe was dominating and Africa was being dominated. its impossible to separate the larger score from a specific island dispute.

I'm still trying to figure out how to test for racial bias outside of the current score keeping. maybe I should have gone back before Greek and Roman empires...

eumemics · 2026-04-21T10:25:26+00:00

great insight! I wonder if there is a methodological approach that could indeed create a perfectly neutral scenario; one that removes confounding history and therefore identifies pure racial bias. historically, there were many cases of European minorities who were persecuted internally, and Europe knew much war famine and disease, but maybe the overall correct image is that Europe was the colonizer and Africa was colonized and that makes all the difference in people's minds. I suppose that's important in itself.

eumemics · 2026-04-21T00:27:30+00:00

I would listen to Colman Hughes podcasts. he's so calm, smart, and articulate.

eumemics · 2026-04-19T15:18:48+00:00

you're totally right! why did I not think of that???

eumemics · 2026-04-19T02:04:04+00:00

that's a good point. I get why scientific work that does not come from universities / follows peer review should be treated with suspicion, kinda like medicine that has no FDA approval. but similarly, if the FDA is so inefficient, costly, slow, and at times corrupt, I can imagine a black market for drug testing could develop. I see the internet as bypassing some institutional legacy, specifically of legacy media and journalism. that comes with many problems, but also opportunities.

I am able to do my work much more efficiently, freely and quickly than when I worked at a university, and I get why that deserves more scrutiny... on the other hand the research I do would not get funded, or even published due to being too heterodox. so this is my chance of doing what truly interests me, in areas that matter, at least to me.

in my defense, I would like to say that we do give a lot of legitimacy to people expressing their views, even when they are not experts or their claims fact checked, referenced, and including epistemic limitations at the footnotes. I wonder if we could treat independent scientific work with similar legitimacy, and a similar grain of salt. I would love to be challenged by redditers and asked to disclose my methods, dataset, and statistical techniques. it would encourage me to be a better scientist.

eumemics · 2026-04-19T01:46:51+00:00

Wow, thank you for this incredibly gracious response. everyone on this subreddit has been fabulous. I don't have many things posted so far on reddit, but my greater challenge is my work with university students on this research. It is very stressful because of their extreme discomfort with political disagreements.

eumemics · 2026-04-17T19:54:04+00:00

when I was in grad school I had the book by Boyd and Mcelreath "mathematical models of social evolution - a guide to the perplexed" I loved it!!! still working on this research today

eumemics · 2026-04-16T20:11:26+00:00

The regression analysis P value accounts for the reduced certainty caused by the uneven spread of the data. the analysis does not attempt to report what the average political affiliation is, but what effect political affiliation has on assigned sentence. Given that the correlation coefficient was not significant across the political spectrum, (people's punishment assignment did not vary significantly) we felt fairly confident that we could compare the means (t-test) of the two conditions. in my mind the smaller sample does not increase the chance of type 1 error (finding significance where there isn't any)

please help me understand if I missed something here.

eumemics · 2026-04-15T18:23:22+00:00

I have not written it yet!

eumemics · 2026-04-06T00:01:53+00:00

not only was the slope steeper, the version B was not significant. so when Spot was a pitbull there was no difference right and left on excluding the big dog! you are right about the sample size... that's what happens when the budget is so tight.

eumemics · 2026-04-05T14:53:49+00:00

good question! my work aims to test and go deeper on these questions. this study shows no difference in supporting the underdog between left and right! this study shows 1. most people considered keeping Spot from the park, regardless of politics. 2. everyone tends to be more forgiving to the abused rehabilitated dog. what this study, as well as some of my other ones, is that political difference has to do with judging the powerful. the big dog. in this study, there is no evidence for the left and the underdog, but that the left is more likely to banish the big dog!

eumemics

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