3/25/2023 0 Comments Signal part 3![]() When we do that to others, we often do it to ourselves. When we reduce each other to a set of “personality” rules or behaviors, we destroy our ability to analyze and interpret the rich micro, meso, and macro semiotic networks that are a major component of the human mind. With friends, we get to wear more kinds of clothes, say more things, and generally relax more than we can in large groups, but the underlying issue of how we interpret each others’ speech and behavior cannot be satisfyingly resolved by resorting to the “personality” rules that govern our semiotic networks in large groups. What having a steady “personality” too often does is bring large-group rules into intimate relationships. We have to understand each other and, thus, in large groups we have to make it easy to do that by, for example, singing songs, meeting in the same places, wearing uniforms, listening to speeches, and confining ourselves to a few main ideas. The ways that large groups build group bonding shows a great deal about basic human signaling. Large groups must function by following lowest-common-denominator rules, so having more or less standard or uniform “personalities” is in the interest of most if not all large groups. This situation is even sort of desirable in formal or professional situations. If they are simple enough, we are able to predict how others will behave as they will be able to predict our behavior. Since our culture does this all the time, people having “personalities” seems ordinary and even satisfying. ![]() It is limiting because in essence all personality is is a few rules or principles that govern social interpretations a few simple rules that reduces the plethora of possible interpretations to just a few. Once that mistake is made, people want to develop this agency of personality by adorning it with emotions, behaviors, and expressions. I put personality in quotes because I think it is a dangerous word since it tends to lead people into believing that they actually possess some inner actor or agency that defines or “expresses” who they are. With just this one rule, you can establish yourself as having an optimistic “personality.” Much the same can be said for other types of “personalities.” This simple rule-to always reduce the multitude of possible social interpretations to an optimistic few-saves time, reduces ambiguity, and presents a nice face to the world. For example, an “optimistic personality” could with considerable explanatory power be described as being an “optimistic principle that governs the semiotic network of perception and interpretation.” ![]() ![]() These rules, or principles of behavior, in my view, are roughly what people mean when they speak of “personality,” their own or someone else’s. Rather than wonder about the vast majority of communicative exchanges with others, we generally put our minds in social autopilot mode and interpret what we are hearing and perceiving according to fairly simple rules we have already established. In social situations, though the stakes may be higher psychologically, we do much the same. We put our minds on autopilot and do our tasks by accessing rote procedures and memories. In the material world of doing familiar things in familiar surroundings, we handle the abundance of possible interpretations by simply ignoring most of them. In truth, there are countless possible interpretations for every moment of every day if we choose to notice them. In this post I want to discuss how human signaling is normally managed and, knowing this, how we can better understand how it affects us. In the first three parts of A signal based model of psychology, we discussed micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding and how paying attention to these levels can make human signaling easier to comprehend.
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