Credential Signaling
Degrees, titles, institutional affiliations and collective endorsements serve as proxies for competence; prestige transfers from institution to person to product, and the proxy is trusted even where it predicts little.
An everyday example
Hiring the candidate from the famous school over the one with the better work.
What it can cost you
Buying the halo; conferring trust on products because of an institution's name; over-paying for credentials as a consumer or a parent.
Warning signs
- I trusted the institution, not the person.
- I never looked at the work.
One thing to do
Ask what the credential actually predicts for the task; where you can, look at the work directly.
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