Honest Signals — Notes

Many types of human behavior can be predicted from biologically based signaling behaviors. These form an unconscious channel of communication between people. Unlike language, honest signals are necessarily two-way: and in my opinion, they are extremely difficult to fake in the moment, except when intensely practiced. Intense practice, however, is an honest signal; it reflects an energy expenditure which cannot have been faked. This is one reason why Y Combinator requires a video in their application – they want to observe your honest signals.

In fact, did you know that in pitching a business plan to business experts, honest signaling through vocal tone — specifically, leadership signals — is the most important factor as to whether a plan will be judged as sound? This is confirmed when you have experts cross-reference the plans by reading through them instead. Different ratings are assigned.

Honest Signals is a mind-blowing book that fans of psychology will love; it’s certainly in my top ten for books I’ve read this year.
You can get it from Amazon for only $8.84. Another amazing thing is that it’s only 98 pages long, or 150 if you include the appendices.

My notes follow. I apologize for their poor formatting; however, they’re good enough for me, and I encourage you to buy the book and read it for yourself if you really want to learn.

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influence: measured by the extent to which one person causes the other person’s pattern of speaking to match their own pattern
mimicry- the reflexive copying of one person by another during a conversation
activity- increased activity levels normally indicate interest and excitement
consistency – the consistency of emphasis and timing is a signal of mental focus, while greater variability may signal an openness to influence from others

the influence on speaking pitch (fundamental tone of one’s voice) predicts who will win a presidential debate
candidate who sets the tone is seen as the most dominant and that voters react to this signal of dominance

everyone has had the experience of accidentally bumping into obstacles when deeply engaged in a conversation. this sort of “tunnel attention” is expensive in biological terms, because the perfect time for a predator to sneak up on a human is when they are engrossed in a conversation. as a result of its cost, the strength of influence in a conversation serves as an honest signal of attention. you can’t maintain the intricate dance of conversational turn taking if you aren’t paying attention
—> reading a room to see whose attention is focused on you when an error occurs

more empathic people are more likely to mimic their conversational partners

just adding mimicry made the sales pitch 20% more effective

unconscious automatic mimicry improved financial results by 20-30%

energy expenditure is an honest signal of the value that one attaches to a social interaction

our activity level, even when suppressed and visible only as fidgets and nervousness, is an honest signal of interest

in a speed dating event, the woman’s level of activity was the most important indicator of whether she was going to share her phone number

imagine ur in a salary negotiation. the other person has just thrown you off balance by proposing something completely unexpected. somehow you have to quickly figure out what to do without letting on that this has left you flailing about for the right response. here’s what is likely to happen next with your behavior: your speaking pace, emphasis, and even hand and body movements become uneven as your mental resources strive to work on the new problem and at the same time carry on the conversation as if nothing happened. it is this variability in emphasis and rhythm that people are really unable to control. consequently, the consistency of one’s emphasis and timing is an honest signal of a focused and smoothly functioning mind.

^— -how to throw people for loops by pacing them and then throwing a spike in their path
FRAME VENN DIAGRAMS!!! <-- lay down one frame that could possibly be inclusive of the other frame then all of a sudden./... wooooohooo

variability seems to signal an openness to input from other people

variability indicates competing mental processes and is a signal that others may be able to influence your thinking

social role of exploring, such as when you want to explore the possibility of having a deeper relationship with someone, can be communicated by displaying honest signals of interest and an openness to influence. that is, you would adopt a high activity level along with variable emphasis and rhythm.

for the social role of active listening, you would display a combination of active interest and an openness to new ideas. you would therefore have variable emphasis along with an activity level that is suppressed. e.g. gchat "THE USER HAS ENTERED TEXT"
^-- -compassionpit religion = no no, no openness to new ideas since religion is a signal of fixed mindedness.

the teaming role requires the display of combo of attention, empathic understanding, and focused thought and purpose. in signals this means high influence, ample mimicry and consistent emphasis and rhythm

when the woman had a high activity level and strongly variable emphasis -- again, the signaling a component of the exploring display -- this accurately predicted both parties' decision about whether to trade phone #s
--> how do you prompt interest and variability?

active listening: achieved by signaling that includes suppressed level of activity and variable emphasis.

business plan pitching = hard sell signals
sales dynamics = soft sell = active listening.

active listening at poker denotes being engaged in bluffing or high risk play.

the teaming role is characterized by the display of a combination of attention, empathic understanding, and focused thought and purpose.

leading display includes high activity levels, high levels of influence, and consistency of emphasis and rhythm

ape troops coordinate their activities through signaling instead of language

certain sorts of teasing or ironic humor, for instance, seem to arise from the conscious opposition of signalign and language; consider a young woman saying to a young man “no, i’m not attracted to you” when she’s preening, flicking her hair, batting her eyes, etc.

charisma is a shared cross-cultural judgment, and charismatic people are unsuually expressive, sensitive, and ahve strong internal control
^— this is why all the charisma gurus tell you to MEDITATE because it achieves strong internal control

signalling inherently changes both people, whereas conscious language can strictly be one-way

mimicking – salary negotiations – affects feelings of trust BUT the feeling of trust is two-way

the social role assumed by any given individual is determined in part by that person, but also by the other people in the group who are interacting with that individual.

If there are two or more people taking the attacker role, say, more extreme, polarized decisions tend to result. if there is only one protagonist and everyone else is a supporter, a typical outcome is groupthink.

you can often predict which choice the group will select by simply paying attention tot he initial reactions. the group’s behavior is frequently almost like voting

average activity level in brainstorming is predictive of the productivity of the group. that is, quiet groups are no more productive than having their members brainstorm separately, but highly active, engaged groups are more productive than the sum of their parts

is the team energetic and engaged? is there a high level of trust and openness? is there a strong feeling of team and membership?
^— these determine key aspects of an organization’s intelligence: its capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, and learn
hackman 2002. reicher haslam & platow 2007.

instead of rationality based on the syllogism, logic, and argument, we will see rationality based on minimizing risk and maximizing reward. our ability to make group decisions may have evolved from an ancient signaling mechanism that is based on a market of ideas rather than on deduction.

mountain gorillas decide when to end an afternoon siesta by using “close call” signals. when everyone in the group has been heard from, and the “conversation” reaches a certain intensity level, then the rest period is over.

“social voting” process could be the most common type of decision making in social animals, in part because it is good at accounting for the cost-benefit trade-offs of everyone in the group.

everyone bets on each suggested action by adjusting their activity level (signaling interest), and then we just add up the total amount of activity in the group and pick the alternative with the most bets

each person must be able to signal to the group how interested they are in each alternative and then be able to read the combined signaling of the group
^– “network intelligence”

“idiots” and “gossip”
you just have to account for people who aren’t good at predicting the outcome of actions. to do this, you have to weight people’s opinion by their track record at estimating payoffs in previous decisions. this weighting when done properly takes care of idiots

honest signals communicate abotu the relationship between people rather than about the content of the dialogue

if you watch people walking across a plaza, the amount of influence between two people allows us to accurately tell who is following whom, who is avoiding whom, and who is trying to catch up with whom

people who have greater influence on the pattern of network connections also have greater power in guiding the information flow. the power a person has over the information flow is often described by their centrality within the social network. the mathematical definition of centrality comes from calculating how many paths of information run through the person. these differences in influence make some people more central to the network, and others less central. influence brings centrality, and centrality brings greater control over the flow of information within the network.

influence is an extremely sensitive measure of centrality

when people work together, they begin to pass email notes to supplant face to face communication, like kids passing notes

our minds are also substantially governed by the unconscious signaling within the social fabric that surrounds us

this mixture of unconscious signaling and conscious interaction may explain why psychology studies repeatedly find that our opinions are surprisingly predictable from our associates’ opinions, even when they fly in the face of strong counterfactual evidence or strongly held beliefs. as a consequence, important parts of our intelligence exist as network properties, not individual properties.

the activity measure was the strongest predictor of interest. variable emphasis (low consistency), an honest signal of openness to information, was also significantly related to interest rating

persuasive speakers talked faster than others
leading display: signals of interest and certainty through high activity and consistent emphasis – produce the highest-rated business pitches.
(of course, how do you get to confidence? 1, confident consistent belief systems; 2, deliberate practice)
it’s an “honest signal”
sian beilock’s book “Choke” see my notes on the how to avoid choking under pressure here for some practical tips

succcessful calls tended to involve agents who display active listening, signaling tha they are receptive to and interested in the caller
VARIABLE EMPHASIS (empathic listening). LOW ACTIVITY (let the customer speak).

high-status negotiators need to display leading signals (activity, influence and consistency) whereas low-status negotiators need to display teaming signals (influence, mimicry, and consistency).
^— do you want to be the high status negotiator in the room, or do you want to be the low one?

when a person is bluffing, they consciously try to reduce all signaling, often ceasing to speak and becoming very still, to avoid giving opponents a reason to call them on their bluff.

alternating caps only ==> signals variability,?? but also perhaps, lower status and active listening. hEy wAhTs up wiTh YoU? how are U doin?
animated conversations more likely to be “bookmarked”
a display of exploring by both people predicts trading contact information
paying close attention to a demonstration, they would be more quiet and still.

to get a job, display HIGH INFLUENCE, AMPLE MIMICRY, CONSISTENT EMPHASIS AND RHYHTM

influence is a much more subtle and accurate indicator of connection than simple similarity

a property of the entire network can be seen in the behavior of each individual demonstrates that we are deeply connected to the global structure fo our social network

activation from recognition of similar situations, weighted by the otucomes associated with those memories, serves to place a bet on each altenrative action. these weighted activities are then summed together, and the course of action with the most activation is selected

the major sorts of problems we encounter aren’t errors in logic – those are detectable and thus fixable – but the difficulty of accurately capturing the full complexity of the world in linguistic statements and mathematical models

an informed unconscious, especially one supported by the experiences of a network of interested individuals, is the most powerful decision-making tool you have

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