Signalling, commitment, and strategic absurdities

Abstract

Why do well-functioning psychological systems sometimes give rise to absurd beliefs that are radically misaligned with reality? Drawing on signalling theory, I develop and explore the hypothesis that groups often embrace beliefs that are viewed as absurd by outsiders as a means of signalling ingroup commitment. I clarify the game-theoretic and psychological underpinnings of this hypothesis, I contrast it with similar proposals about the signalling functions of beliefs, and I motivate several psychological and sociological predictions that could be used to distinguish it from alternative explanations of irrational group beliefs.absurd belief, irrationality, motivated reasoning, self-deception, signalling, socially adaptive belief "Apparently irrational cultural beliefs are quite remarkable: they do not appear irrational by slightly departing from common sense, or timidly going beyond what the evidence allows. They appear, rather, like down-right provocations against common sense rationality" (Sperber, 1985, p. 85).

Expressive Responding in Support of Donald Trump: An Extended Replication of Schaffner and Luks (2018)

“…A potential explanation for such a pattern is that expressive responding might be more common for particularly bizarre claims, such as, claiming that Obama is the Antichrist and claiming that a photo of Trump's rally that clearly has fewer people actually has more people. This is plausible because, according to some accounts, expression of particularly bizarre beliefs can serve as signals of solidarity and belonging (Ganapini, 2021;Mercier, 2020;Williams, 2022). In any case, this suggestion is speculative, and it is easily possible that our study was simply underpowered to consistently identify relatively small associations.…”

Expressive responding in support of Donald Trump: An extended replication of Schaffner and Luks (2018)

“…This is plausible because statements such as these could become markers of group belonging when strongly associated with particular partisan beliefs. On this view, expression of particularly bizarre beliefs would serve as a signal of solidarity and belonging (Ganapini, 2021;Mercier, 2020;Williams, 2021). In any case, this suggestion is speculative, and it is easily possible that the study was simply underpowered to consistently identify relatively small associations, or the association between the photo question and the Antichrist question might have been a false positive (after all, we did not correct for family-wise errors in our statistical analyses).…”

Awake together: Sociopsychological processes of engagement in conspiracist communities

“…As the irrationality of CT beliefs provokes derision or ostracism, their holders incur reputational damage [39]. This damage functions as a costly, and thus credible signal of commitment to the group [38]. By "burning bridges" to mainstream groups [40], conspiracists credibly demonstrate their loyalty to a conspiracist community, or to the ideology conspiracism serves to justify.…”