notes for 2006.02.16

2006.02.16
week 2

open for questions:

how can signaler know when receiver has 'gotten' the signal?
ex. facial expressions (not clear how other ppl are responding)
difficult and ambiguous online -- what is the response?
try to gather info to help shape the response

increased complexity from moving from animal world to human world

fur-coat wearer -- how do they know that the signal was received successfully?
salient confirmation / reinforcement (ex. invited to fancy parties)
going by your own and other's experiencing (modeling your behaviour after successful others)

performance :: compendium of everything you do, complex system put together by all different pieces of behaviour and display
--> comes through with extensive established knowledge

(from assignment)

assessment signal: signaling a need

suicide bomber ends the relationship between signaller and receiver
hunger strike -- the relationship lasts since the person slowly wastes away, weakens, but does not die
showing strength for fighting particular cause
- combining physical cost as well as associative cost
putting price on a cause --> signal of need of life, attention

quality : absolute importance of a political statement
not in domain of quality being signaled

absolute need of food or life vs. personal internal model of what the cost is
(harvard: jessica stern, top scholar on suicide bombers)
suicide --> reward vs. suicide --> eternal damnation
loss of life is less of a handicap

how do we discourage the personal assessment of benefit / cost?
a whole complex belief system -- aggression + salvation

conventional signal : war medals

signaling bravery, veteran
can be awarded by the secretary of defense in doing well in a war
or buy them on ebay
easily copied and for trivial money cost
needs to be backed up by other supporting factors
need to verify through questions, more evidence of knowledge
object doesnt have inherent connection, but it changes meaning based on the ease of availability
the people who would respond most to the medal would be the actual veterans, and they would be able to tell more accurately
for a war medal -- low benefit through a dishonest signal

what are the social costs for wearing false badges? punishment costs? shame?
determines how valuable a deceptive signal comes out to be, and what are the benefits?

immediate reward (getting ahead in a queue) vs. longterm award (respect, acceptance, being justly awarded)

valar (sp?) deceptively pledged large sums of money to people
thought that he would pull through, but the money did not exist

healthier deception (believe you are a better person, strive) vs. unhealthier deception (personal psychological wellbeing > truthfulness)

conventional signal: white iPod earbuds

indicating iPod ownership, which indicates association with apple brand, music-loving, iconoclastic
white earbuds are now commercially available, to connect to any system
what does the whiteness mean? meaning changes with time and across people
first: early adopters got it, relished the white earbuds
as use of iPod spreads, the signal of exclusivity changes, white earbuds as signal weakens
white earbuds became uncool, stigma --> the exclusive group now changing to more expensive headsets, something different

not just fashion change (i.e. white buds to purple buds), but costly signal to show audiophile nature (costly headsets)
note: subtract out the benefits

gave up sound quality (cost) to be cool (benefit)

you have good sound quality (benefit) and looking cooler (benefit)
--> you can defend yourself as caring only about audio rather than caring about riding on the iPod fashion train

paradox of being perceived as cool by not trying to be cool

apple brand campaign of the white earbuds -- reinforcing the adaptation of the actual user market

where do new ideas come from? cyclical process from the marketing to the client usage; complex parameters
trend-watching is an art and a science --> affected by directions of society, marketing, subcultures

what does society define as something worth paying for?
debt vs. quality of life vs. material goods vs. caring about certain things vs. wanting to look like caring about certain things
subjective experience of a signal!

assessment signal: body fat

less - industrial nations:
if you have body fat, positive indication that you have ample nutrition and dont have to labor
reliable -- if you are poor and dont have much, you eat less and work more, and have a leaner body

more - industrial nations:
sit-down work, sedentary
easy to be fat
cheap food is fattening
gym memberships are expensive
being fat or skinny: drifting into a conventional signal
is this aspect of appearance... controllable? accepted? natural? main goal?
commodity of a difficult/rare body ideal. power of exclusivity -- difficulty of being thin, or being fat

relates to body image, perception through media, construction of a society body ideal

ex. suntanned skin.
if most low-status labor is outside, then thin/tan is low-status, pale/plump is high-status
when low-status labor moves inside, the tan shows more leisure and cost to go on sunny vacation / go tanning salon

complexity of body fat parameters: biology, genes, diet/nutrition, activity, metabolism, cost of trainers/gym/spa/dietfood

obesity epidemic -- controversial -- medicine/science/health vs. cosmetic/fashion.

what does being obese signal? depends on other supporting factors
nascar shirt --> poor, uneducated, can't control
tuxedo --> fatcat, wealthy, executive
history of medical conditions
changes in today's food industry, lowercost foods are plentiful and fatty
it's expensive to eat healthy, organic, natural stuff

equating thinness with control, discipline, focus, perfection (extreme: anorexia)
culture-changing --> meaning of signal changes

conventional signal: IM away messages

indicating 'busy' or 'unavailable' status
can deceive that you dont want to talk to someone particular
costly to find out if the person is actually being truthful

designing online spaces --
putting up an away message is super easy to do and to signal dishonestly
analyse comfort levels of
what does saying one is 'away' really signal?
-- closing down channel of communication
ambiguous in terms of why someone is 'away'
new language -- culture of away messages
responsibility and expectation -- you should respond if you're not set as 'away'
need to have specific messages to explain behaviour (i.e. taking a shower)
away messages instill a new level of dialogue
binary 'away' gives a blanker, ambiguous, face-saving option (neutral indication)
and users dont necessarily want to lie by saying they're 'busy' or 'away'
which opens up the door to more detailed accounts and narratives, higher expectation of explanation

signaling tradeoff: privacy versus detail

faceted identity: what identity you share with friends, family, co-workers, roommate
collapse of boundaries with a shared mediated interface (IM, cellphone, social network profile, etc)
might be inappropriate or confusing to collapse these boundaries

new stuff: social identity

- how do we understand other people?
george simmel (1907) - how is society possible?
how do we make sense of other people? receive fragments, and we fill in spaces
underlying framework: prototype theory (a way of generalising the world)
abstract concepts -- what is a chair? who is a good person?
you assign individual instances to prototypes -- classes -- functionality / form
is the pope a bachelor?
prototype theory - social types --- know more about the people, how to understand and interact
different to speak to / refer to gender, social status, background, etc.

prestige + intimacy
teaching a child to speak to different people in different ways
enculturation
culture -- shared notions, norms, prototypes, stereotypes
we need these prototypes to function -- cant start from scratch every time about every person
notion of roles, expectations, assumed knowledge
cost of prototypes: an imperfect fit, can be misleading or wrong than expected

sculptural: some cues lead to mental representation, prototype fitting, complex process
constant cognitive modifications the more knowledge and experience gleaned from the world
mediation -- both applying and learning personal prototype representation
how do these models overlap? are shared? conflict?
how to translate prototypes into a kind of language to discuss and to share? how to articulate?

online world, signals are sparse, and how do prototypes formulate in that culture?
deliberate deception vs. unintentional deception
absence of cues and signals
understanding cost to manage different levels of deception

good luck on the next assignment!