Good manners: signaling social preferences

Certain messages, even when not directly payoff relevant, can be a credible form of communication in light of natural social preferences. Social image concerns and other‐regarding preferences interact to create incentives to communicate about how one feels about other people. Recognizing the prevalence of the incentive to communicate about one’s social preferences suggests that many social and economic phenomena–from norms of etiquette to cooperation to gift exchange–should be seen, in part, as forms of signaling. These behaviors may be surprisingly robust to material costs, yet sensitive to context.