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The Evolution of Covert Signaling

Human sociality depends upon the benefits of mutual aid and extensive communication. However, diverse norms and preferences complicate mutual aid, and ambiguity in meaning hinders communication. Here we demonstrate that these two problems can work together to enhance cooperation through the strategi...

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Autores principales: Smaldino, Paul E., Flamson, Thomas J., McElreath, Richard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5861109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29559650
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22926-1
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author Smaldino, Paul E.
Flamson, Thomas J.
McElreath, Richard
author_facet Smaldino, Paul E.
Flamson, Thomas J.
McElreath, Richard
author_sort Smaldino, Paul E.
collection PubMed
description Human sociality depends upon the benefits of mutual aid and extensive communication. However, diverse norms and preferences complicate mutual aid, and ambiguity in meaning hinders communication. Here we demonstrate that these two problems can work together to enhance cooperation through the strategic use of deliberately ambiguous signals: covert signaling. Covert signaling is the transmission of information that is accurately received by its intended audience but obscured when perceived by others. Such signals may allow coordination and enhanced cooperation while also avoiding the alienation or hostile reactions of individuals with different preferences. Although the empirical literature has identified potential mechanisms of covert signaling, such as encryption in humor, there is to date no formal theory of its dynamics. We introduce a novel mathematical model to assess when a covert signaling strategy will evolve, as well as how receiver attitudes coevolve with covert signals. Covert signaling plausibly serves an important function in facilitating within-group cooperative assortment by allowing individuals to pair up with similar group members when possible and to get along with dissimilar ones when necessary. This mechanism has broad implications for theories of signaling and cooperation, humor, social identity, political psychology, and the evolution of human cultural complexity.
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spelling pubmed-58611092018-03-26 The Evolution of Covert Signaling Smaldino, Paul E. Flamson, Thomas J. McElreath, Richard Sci Rep Article Human sociality depends upon the benefits of mutual aid and extensive communication. However, diverse norms and preferences complicate mutual aid, and ambiguity in meaning hinders communication. Here we demonstrate that these two problems can work together to enhance cooperation through the strategic use of deliberately ambiguous signals: covert signaling. Covert signaling is the transmission of information that is accurately received by its intended audience but obscured when perceived by others. Such signals may allow coordination and enhanced cooperation while also avoiding the alienation or hostile reactions of individuals with different preferences. Although the empirical literature has identified potential mechanisms of covert signaling, such as encryption in humor, there is to date no formal theory of its dynamics. We introduce a novel mathematical model to assess when a covert signaling strategy will evolve, as well as how receiver attitudes coevolve with covert signals. Covert signaling plausibly serves an important function in facilitating within-group cooperative assortment by allowing individuals to pair up with similar group members when possible and to get along with dissimilar ones when necessary. This mechanism has broad implications for theories of signaling and cooperation, humor, social identity, political psychology, and the evolution of human cultural complexity. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-03-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5861109/ /pubmed/29559650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22926-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Smaldino, Paul E.
Flamson, Thomas J.
McElreath, Richard
The Evolution of Covert Signaling
title The Evolution of Covert Signaling
title_full The Evolution of Covert Signaling
title_fullStr The Evolution of Covert Signaling
title_full_unstemmed The Evolution of Covert Signaling
title_short The Evolution of Covert Signaling
title_sort evolution of covert signaling
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5861109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29559650
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22926-1
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