Applications of Signaling Theory in Sociological Scholarship

Signaling theory (ST) describes how people deal with and overcome uncertainties about others’ attributes and intentions relevant to their interactions. I integrate ST into a multilevel framework to highlight how people's need to overcome these uncertainties shapes collective outcomes and to spell out the different conditions for the theory's predictions. After a nontechnical outline of the integrated ST framework, I review three strands of sociological scholarship that have applied ST, broadly construed: ( a ) the job market and the education-to-work transition, ( b ) trust and cooperation in social and economic exchange relations, and ( c ) signaling norms and boundary making in intergroup relations. After recounting how ST has spurred the sociological imagination, I sketch promising research directions.