Virtue signaling
Virtue signaling is the act of signaling compliance with norms, i.e. compliance with values shared within a culture. Excessive virtue signaling is also called a moral panic. People virtue signal to either…
- to reinforce norms and synchronize norms and values (to reduce the chance of others acting in disfavorable manner and enable cooperation),
- to lower the chances of being socially excluded for violating the norms and evade shaming (especially when one is vulnerable/low status or has violated the norm or a tendency to do so),
- to elevate one's status and power by appearing virtuous, e.g. to advance one's career within a system that tightly selects its members for value compliance, or
- to put down others (discrediting political opponents, bullying, intrasexual competition, or general competition).
Either way it is conductive to reproductive success, explaining why humans do it.
Runaway virtue signaling[edit | edit source]
Virtue signaling itself reinforces the norms, so over time the norm becomes stronger and then the need for virtue signaling becomes stronger.
Female virtue signaling vs dating pool manipulation[edit | edit source]
Many in the redpill community suggested women tell men to be nice not (only) for virtue signaling, but to shit test them. Women want men to "just get it" that they actually desire dark triad males. Telling them to be nice will conveniently eliminate men from the dating pool who are too tame to begin with and shy away from male intrasexual competition which are of no use to women desiring to be protected from other males.
Female virtue signaling[edit | edit source]
Women are overall more agreeable, avoid conflicts, and also more conforming with social norms. For example, most victims of mass hysteria are female.[1] Virtue signaling also has something sneaky about it, which agrees with women being more sneaky than males. It can hence be assumed that women also use virtue signaling a bit more, e.g. women are also commonly pushing political platitudes about society or the environment (though often seemingly driven by a motherly instinct for protecting the offspring). Due to women's lower status drive and activity levels, they are probably less often seen virtue signaling overall. They rather try to blend in, sneakily secure some resources for themselves and their offspring without drawing too much attention (as women also score higher in withdrawal).