Should you have Dr or PhD in your X name?
Anyone who has spent five minutes reading about the economics concept of signalling intuitively understands the phenomenon of X accounts advertising their doctorates. Yet is this an effective signalling mechanism? This is what the ongoing debate on X reduces to.
Signalling pervades our daily lives. It explains everything from why wealthy individuals collect expensive yet mediocre artworks, to why piles of bookshelves go unread. Even our music tastes, to a large degree, signal our identifies. Why else do most black youths in the inner-cities enjoy rap? Trust me, that music genre is not that great aesthetically…
In general, signalling can resolve the tension between those invoking postmodern skepticism regarding the objective beauty of art and their opponents. Art is not solely a matter of deriving aesthetic pleasure, it is also an effective means to signal. Moreover, huge sums go wasted on signalling games. “Keeping up with the Joneses”? The credentialist rat race (for instance exemplified by many individuals, at least in Britain, pursuing degrees in sport studies or something from a polytechnic), most famously articulated by Bryan Caplan? So signalling not only leads to gargantuan misallocation of resources, but changes our understanding of the most basic facets of life (our primeval sensory tastes) on the most fundamental level.
Unsurprisingly, I hence want to minimise signalling to as much as I can get away with. Ironically that in itself signals a rigourous pursuit for the truth, intellectual curiosity, and concern for what is socially optimal. It signals that I think deeply about the fundamental questions via challenging conventional dogma, rather than solely defaulting to social desirability bias. It could signal my contrarian nature. In any case, this shows that we cannot avoid signalling either, so in that case, how should we signal?
To signal well, you want to avoid being explicit. You do not want to be that guy who is seen to be “trying too hard”, as if you have to exert incredible amounts of effort at something, then arguably you do not yield a natural talent for that; undermining the purpose of the signal.
Therefore, I see those advertising their doctorates on X as trying to get by on their credentials, as opposed to their quality of arguments. Likewise, they also lack strong academic reputations. If you have something valuable to contribute, then that will demonstrate itself. On an online platform, there is no transaction cost to posting nor any asymmetries in information. It is worth noting on this front that the vast majority of academics or doctorates on X do not advertise their qualifications. They already have solid reputations, and have their fair share of noteworthy ideas. Indeed, there is empirical evidence that the least successful academics or PhD holders are the ones with the greatest propensity to promote their titles
On this principle, I tend to find that modesty is indeed a virtue. This is related to the principle of countersignalling: my reputation is already established, and there exists common knowledge regarding my talents. Ergo I have no need to participate in elaborate signalling rituals. Hence, the rise of the professional white-collar hippies caked in tattoos. However, if enough individuals deviate and get tattoos, then a countersignalling strategy can become the majority strategy.
Therefore, to a large degree, you are playing mixed strategy in a game of imperfect information. This is why dating is so difficult! Perhaps that is why many feel the need to boost their titles, to get noticed in the first place. Who is the educated layman more likely to listen to, a random blogger or a proven academic? So for the less well-known academics, perhaps using PhD or Dr on their online accounts is a means to boost their reputation in the first place? We all have to start somewhere…