Doctoral Dissertation Research: Testing the Intrinsic Benefit Model of Cultural Signaling

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SES-1404371Joseph GalaskiewiczSosuke OkadaUniversity of ArizonaIn many social interactions, it is important to determine qualities of others, such as competence, loyalty, or trustworthiness. Signaling theory focuses on these situations. The senders possess an internal characteristic which they aware of, but is unobservable to others. There is a conflict of interest between the sender and the receiver, as the sender benefits from being perceived in a better light, whereas the receiver wants to accurately determine the sender's internal characteristic. Under this condition, a signal will be reliable only when the cost of producing the signal is lower for those with higher quality than for those with lower quality. The co-PI proposes the model of cultural signaling where the sender can enjoy intrinsic benefits from engaging in a cultural act. The intrinsic benefit reduces the net cost of practicing the cultural act for the sender, which will result in the inverse association between quality and signaling cost. For example, if someone is more committed to a social cause, s/he can gain more intrinsic benefit (feeling good, for example) from contributing to the cause. This intrinsic benefit can make up for the actual cost of the contribution; therefore the contribution is effectively less expensive for those who are more committed to it. This way, cultural acts can function as signals of desirable internal qualities. The intrinsic benefit model makes the following predictions. First, senders are more willing to pay higher cost to perform a cultural act when they have a high level of the corresponding characteristic. Second, a cultural act will be perceived as a signal of intrinsic quality when it appears to be costly for the sender to perform the cultural act, and there are no salient extrinsic benefits from signaling that are potentially motivating the cultural act. Third, the visibility of a cultural act should affect how well the cultural act can function as a signal. For the sender, high visibility of a cultural act can make it more attractive, but for the receiver, high visibility can make the sender's extrinsic motivation more salient. The project will conduct three experiments to test the predictions. The first two experiments will focus on purchase of an electronic vehicle as the signal of environmental commitment. The third experiment will focus on charitable giving as a signal of social preference. Broader ImpactsThe main advantage of the intrinsic benefit model is that it provides a general, easy-to-use framework which will allow applying signaling theory across diverse phenomena of sociological interest while using an assumption which is widely accepted among laypersons. The proposal argues that applications in organizational studies (in particular, the interactions between organizations and their audience), intragroup dynamics (both cooperation and competition), and research on cultural capital can potentially greatly benefit from the intrinsic benefit model. This model can provide a parsimonious rational-choice based explanation for many behaviors that are seemingly irrational or culturally determined. In addition, it can also help develop techniques for promoting socially beneficial behaviors through manipulating signaling benefits. For example, the investigators argue that many seemingly maladaptive behaviors are motivated by the need for signaling -- not only can our research shed new insight into such behaviors, but it can also help reduce such behaviors by reducing signaling benefits.