The costs of religious ‘cheap talk’: the semiotics of interpretant driven costly signaling within contested communicative environments

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent decades scholars of religion have used costly signaling theory to advance our understanding of seemingly wasteful behaviors by showing how they may function as in-group signals, enhancing social solidarity and cooperation. However, most analyses have assumed that speech and other forms of ‘cheap talk’ like common adornments are too cheap to function as costly signals. This article argues that integrating recent work on the multiple mechanisms of honest signaling and paying closer attention to the semiotic analyses of Charles Peirce, especially his focus on interpretants, allows us better to assess the relationships between signal costs and culturally heterogeneous communicative environments. In religiously contested communicative environments ostensibly cheap signs may function as costly signals. The article develops a theory of interpretant driven costly signaling and lays out the conditions for religious ‘cheap talk’ and inexpensive adornment to function as costly signals in religiously plural communicative environments.