Generate ideas that don't sound logical, then validate them with cheap behavioural experiments — Rory Sutherland's 'the opposite of a good idea can be a good idea' plus revealed-preference testing. Use when the obvious/logical solution is saturated and the user wants genuinely different options, asks 'what's a creative/unconventional angle', 'how do we stand out', 'should we run a test/experiment', 'how do we know what people actually want', or is about to trust a survey/focus group. Covers deliberate inversion of the obvious move, why stated preferences lie, and designing small reversible experiments that watch behaviour. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「競合と同じ案しか出ない」「アンケートは好評なのに売れない」「思い切った案を安く試したい」）にも使う。中文咨询（“只能想出和竞品一样的方案”“问卷好评却卖不动”）也适用。
costly-signaling
Why expensive, wasteful, effortful, or self-deprecating actions build trust and desire — Rory Sutherland on signalling. Use when the problem is credibility or desirability rather than meaning: the user asks 'why don't people trust us', 'how do we look more credible/committed/premium', 'is our guarantee/warranty worth it', 'should we spend on brand advertising', 'how do we justify a higher price', or wonders why a cheaper-looking competitor wins. Covers costly signals (advertising spend, guarantees, over-delivery), price-as-quality-signal (Veblen goods), and the Pratfall Effect (admitting a real flaw to gain trust). Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「信頼されない」「安心してもらえない」「強気な価格で売りたい」「広告費に意味はある？」）にも使う。
中文咨询（“不被信任”“想以高价出售”“广告费有意义吗？”）也适用。
含まれるファイル（2）
- SKILL.md6.3 KB
- evals/evals.json17.2 KB
SKILL.md（原文）
インストールする前に、エージェントに与えられる指示の中身を確認できます。
Costly Signaling — trust is bought with waste
People can't see your intentions, only your actions — so they read your costly, hard-to-fake actions as proof. Anything cheap and easy to fake (a slogan, a claim, a promise) carries little signal. Anything expensive, effortful, or risky to you carries a lot. This is why "wasteful" things work.
The principle
A signal is credible in proportion to how much it would cost a liar. The peacock's tail is useless and metabolically expensive — that's exactly why it's a believable signal of fitness. Apply the same logic to a brand:
- Advertising spend is itself the message. A big, visible campaign says "we expect to be here long enough to recoup this, and we have repeat customers." A fly-by-night operator can't afford it. The customer doesn't need to read the ad to get the signal.
- Guarantees, warranties, free returns are costly signals: you'd only offer them if the product actually held up. The cost to you is the proof.
- Over-delivery and effort ("we'll answer in three rings," lavish packaging, a hand-written note) signal commitment because they obviously cost something.
- Price can be the feature. For Veblen goods (champagne, perfume, premium tools), a higher price increases desirability and even perceived performance — the expensive placebo genuinely works better. Cutting the price can destroy the signal.
The Pratfall Effect (the honest-flaw signal)
Admitting a real weakness is a costly, hard-to-fake move — so it reads as honesty, and honesty raises trust in everything else you say.
- Avis: "We're number two. We try harder." Owning the weakness made the brand more likeable and more credible than claiming to be the best.
- "It's ugly, but it works." / "We're not the cheapest, but here's why." A small genuine flaw makes the rest believable. Perfection reads as marketing; an admitted flaw reads as a person.
How to apply
- Read your current signal. Forget what you say — what do your actions cost you, and therefore prove? Cheap claims ("trusted," "premium," "#1") prove nothing.
- Find a signal a liar couldn't afford. A guarantee that would bankrupt you if the product were bad. Visible, sustained presence. Effort the customer can see. Real expertise on display.
- Consider price as a signal, not just a cost. If trust/desire is the problem, a higher price plus a costlier-looking presentation can outperform a discount. Test before assuming cheaper wins.
- Add one honest flaw (Pratfall). State a real limitation plainly. It buys credibility for every true claim around it. Never invent a fake flaw — that's just another cheap claim.
- Make sure the signal is honest. A costly signal works because it's tied to reality (you really will honour the guarantee, you really are committed). Faking it is expensive to you and fatal when discovered.
日本語の使用例
- 「広告にお金をかける意味がわからない、クリックも測れない」→ 広告は支出そのものがシグナル。"これだけ出せる＝続く会社/リピートがある" と無意識に伝わる。直接効果だけで測ると本質を外す。
- 「強気の価格にすると売れなくなる気がする」→ 信頼・憧れが課題なら値下げはシグナルを壊す。高い価格＋それに見合う見せ方の方が効くことがある（ヴェブレン財）。counterintuitive-tests で検証。
- 「完璧に良く見せたいのに刺さらない」→ プラットフォール効果。本当の弱点を1つ正直に開示すると、残りの主張全部の信頼が上がる。
- 葬儀/シニア領域：「安心してもらいたい」→ "安心です" と言う（安い主張）のではなく、追加料金ゼロの明朗会計・返金保証・24時間必ず人が出る など "嘘つきには払えないコスト" を提示する。
Cross-check against the canon
Sanity-check any proposed signal against these; if it contradicts one, name the contradiction and justify it. When a claim is load-bearing or the user asks for evidence or fresh examples, web-search the named theory or case and cite what you find.
- Amotz Zahavi, the handicap principle — the biology: a signal is honest because it's costly to fake. If your proposed signal is cheap to imitate, it isn't a signal.
- Michael Spence, signalling theory — signals work when they're cheaper for honest senders than for liars; check the cost asymmetry, not just the cost.
- Thorstein Veblen, conspicuous consumption — for status goods, price is the display; discounting can destroy the product's actual function.
- Elliot Aronson, the pratfall effect (1966) — the caveat: an admitted flaw raises trust only when competence is already established. A struggling brand admitting flaws just looks weak — build the credibility signal first.
Related skills
- psycho-logic — the router; confirm trust/desire (not meaning) is the real problem
- reframing — if the issue is meaning rather than credibility, change the frame instead
- counterintuitive-tests — test price-as-signal and pratfall copy before rolling out
- marketing-psychology — authority bias, social proof, scarcity, loss aversion in detail (separate plugin — only if installed)
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同じリポジトリのスキル
概要と使いどころ
The perception-by-culture lens for psycho-logic — establish HOW a specific region, country, or subculture reads a signal before you send it, because perception is culturally coded and the same move can mean the opposite elsewhere. Use when adapting a product, price, message, or campaign to a new market; when the user asks 'will this work in [country/region]', 'why does this land in X but flop in Y', 'how do people here perceive Z', 'how do we localise/differentiate by region', or is about to copy a US/global playbook into another market. Covers the cultural dimensions that move Sutherland's levers — uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, status/power distance, high- vs low-context communication, mental-accounting norms, trust locus, and taboo/sacredness — and how each rewires reframing, costly-signaling, and experience-design. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic; pair with market-recon for live local data. 日本語・中文の相談（「この地域で通用する？」「适合本地市场吗？」）にも使う。
Fix the psychologically significant moment, not the logically significant metric — Rory Sutherland on experience. Use when the outcome is fine but the journey feels bad: complaints about waiting, anxiety, uncertainty, or 'it's technically fast/cheap/correct but people still hate it'; when the user asks 'how do we reduce complaints', 'how do we make waiting/onboarding/checkout feel better', 'people are anxious during X', or is about to spend big to shave a number (wait time, load time, steps) when the real pain is how the moment feels. Covers uncertainty reduction, idle vs occupied waiting, and the peak-end rule. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「待ち時間のクレームが多い」「手続きの途中で離脱される」「お客様を不安にさせている」）にも使う。中文咨询（“等待时间投诉多”“办理中途流失”“让客户感到不安”）也适用。
The live fieldwork layer for psycho-logic — go look at the actual target market NOW instead of reasoning from your training-data stereotype of it. Use when a psycho-logic move needs grounding in a specific place: the user asks 'what do competitors in [region/country] actually do', 'what's the real price band / norm here', 'how do local leaders position themselves', 'research this market before we localise', 'what signals trust to buyers in X', or is about to launch/adapt in a market you haven't studied. Runs structured web research in the local language — local competitors and their signals, price bands, category conventions, review/trust sources, local terminology, taboos and regulations — and synthesises a compact perception profile the four moves consume. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic; pair with cultural-context (the lens that tells you what to look for). 日本語・中文の相談（「現地の実態を調べて」「调研当地市场」）にも使う。
Rory Sutherland's 'psycho-logic' approach to marketing, product, and business problems — solve the human perception, not just the engineering or economic metric. Use when the obvious 'logical' fix is expensive, slow, or already done by every competitor; when the user asks 'how do we make people want X', 'the product/price/funnel is fine but nobody converts', 'how do we stand out', 'is there a cheaper way to fix this', or mentions behavioral economics, nudges, irrational behavior, perception, or 'it doesn't make sense but it works'. This is the ROUTER skill: it diagnoses the problem in human terms, then dispatches to reframing, costly-signaling, counterintuitive-tests, or experience-design. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's book *Alchemy*. 日本語の相談（「商品はいいのに売れない」「値下げしかない？」「競合と差別化できない」）にも使う。中文咨询（“产品很好却卖不动”“只能降价吗？”“无法差异化”）也适用。For a catalogue of individual biases, use marketing-psychology (separate plugin) instead.
Change what something MEANS before you change what it IS — Rory Sutherland's cheapest lever. Use when a product, price, feature, or message is objectively fine but feels cheap, generic, boring, overpriced, or unjustified; when the user says 'how do we make this feel more premium/valuable/exciting', 'people don't get why it's worth it', 'how do we reposition/rename/repackage this', or wants to raise perceived value without changing the product or cutting the price. Covers renaming, recategorising, mental accounting (price framing), creating artificial value, and context-shifting. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「高いと言われる」「安っぽく見える」「値下げせずに高級感を出したい」）にも使う。中文咨询（“被说太贵”“显得廉价”“不降价也想显得高级”）也适用。