[Judgmentality]

> For example, if you claim "I did X over the weekend" and I reply with "I call bullshit", it implies not only that I doubt your claim, but also that at least to some extent I care whether it is true, and also that you care whether I believe you or not (or at least that I think you care).

This doesn't refute anything, in fact it reinforces the theory! Why did I make a claim about what you did over the weekend at all other than to signal to you about it? And of course I care what you think, because that's the entire point of social signalling.

I could say your entire response was a signal itself, and you're not consciously aware of how signalling is driving your behavior. At this point the theory becomes useless.

A good theory has hypotheses that can be (in)validated.

[roywiggins]

The point is that you might as well just not do the thing and say you did it, because nobody will ever verify it. So the doing of it can't have been motivated entirely by signalling; it would have been easier to do something else and just lie.