Tuesday 30 June 2009

Afternoon roundup

3 comments:

  1. Has anyone studied the relationship between signaling status and happiness? That is, I would presume that signaling status has its own utility and the two are not so easily separated.

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  2. Although my daughter, Ava, is a smart 6 year old, she didn't actually write that last comment. It was actually me, a first time visitor here, but likely to return often.

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  3. I'm not sure of any direct studies, but you could compare the list of "signalling heavy" activities discussed here -- follow link to Robin Hanson's post, then check the list of activities by net affect Hanson puts together here. So a kid's education both generates happiness directly and is high in positionality; "washing, dressing, etc" is also of moderate affect and of high positionality. Not sure if there are any studies trying to go for a direct link between signalling activities and happiness; not sure how you'd disentangle the activity itself from the results of the activity. In other words, if status-signalling tends to give you better outcomes, do the outcomes or the signalling bring happiness. Would be interested in seeing any results, but I don't know of any offhand.

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