Verified by 
President Donald Trump
Threats, Truth-Telling, and Trump
Animal communication often has a reliability component, and for good reason
Posted June 29, 2019
Some people have noticed that, believe it or not, Donald Trump doesn’t always tell the truth, and, moreover, that he makes lots of threats that he doesn’t carry out. Mr. Trump's combination of abundant threats (he has initiated nearly 2,000 lawsuits and threatened many more, even before he became president), and lies (more than 3,000 documented by The Washington Post since entering the White House), although highly unusual for a US president, might seem a uniquely human trait. Just as Mark Twain maintained that human beings are the only animals that blush, or have reason to do so, it is occasionally claimed that ours is the only species that exaggerates its threats and lies abundantly. We aren’t.
Dishonesty is widespread among animals, and not just when it comes to camouflage (pretending that you aren’t there, when you are) or mimicry (pretending that you are a different species – typically a more dangerous one - than you are). The natural world is in fact well stocked with natural born liars, especially when issuing threats. On the other hand, an empty threat can be particularly dangerous for the threatener because it can lead to a fight in which the threatener, if his or her claim is “truly” phony, is liable to end up far worse off than if a hollow threat wasn’t issued in the first place. George Bernard Shaw famously quipped that those who can, do, while those who can’t, teach.
Those animals that have effective weapons (e.g., sharp teeth) or other traits (such as poisonous skin) that can intimidate their rivals are not shy about calling attention to such characteristics. Eastern collared lizards have strong jaws, with which they can inflict serious gashes on an opponent during a fight, even breaking bones. Male have especially powerful jaws, indicated by the size of their masseter muscles, and their threat display involves an open-mouthed posture in which the development of their jaw musculature is highlighted, impressing a rival with the fighting capacity of the threatening individual.
Threat displays often involve making the threatener’s body appear larger than it actually is; for example, a cat erecting her fur so as to appear as large as possible. American elk and Scottish red deer rely on their body size and massive antlers to get their way, especially when it comes to competition between bulls; they frequently engage in “parallel walking,” during which opponents strut their bodily stuff, notably their impressive head-gear. When successful, such demonstrations result in the more physically intimidating rival winning a contest without having to fight. Predatory animals with large canines are not shy about displaying them toward an opponent. Poisonous snakes with impressive fangs not only reveal but emphasize their weapons as needed. Bighorn sheep call attention to their big horns. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And yet, bluff, bluster, and deception are also abundant in the natural world.
It would seem that those who can back up their threats with genuine capability should go ahead and threaten, while those who can’t would do well to maintain a meeker and more honest profile. Why, then, is fakery so widespread when it comes to animal threats?
To answer this we must first explore honesty versus dishonesty in animal communication generally. An old tradition in animal behavior research assumed that when communicating, animals seek to maximize their honest information transfer. The sender endeavors to convey certain facts, such as its sex, health, and so forth, along with its current emotional state (sexually aroused, angry, happy, relaxed, and so forth), while the receiver tries to decode the message, which is assumed to be accurate. In short, sender and receiver were thought to be on the same page, the only disconnect being the physical space between them as well as the predictable psychological gulf that separates individuals. The goal of communication is therefore to transcend the separation, for the mutual benefit of sender and receiver.
This cheery perspective has largely been rejected by today’s biologists, since the most widespread current interpretation of the evolutionary process is that natural selection focuses on genes, with success measured by effectiveness in projecting one’s own genes or identical copies of them, lodged in the bodies of others, into the future. In short, evolution is persistently amoral, caring only for genetic success, not how it is achieved.
In addition, talk is cheap; there is little to prevent a sender from claiming something that is untrue, such as that he is a terrific potential mate (usually it is in fact a “he” telling such lies), or a threatening individual maintaining that he is strong, dangerous, and determined (once again, usually it’s a “he”). A key answer to this challenge is to send messages that cannot be faked, an insight provided by the Israeli zoologist Amotz Zahavi, who pointed out that the most effective signals are those that contain a “reliability component.”
This can take the form of an anatomic handicap, such as the unwieldy and metabolically expensive tail of peacocks, which their possessors more vulnerable to predators, and take up precious time and energy to produce. This seems paradoxical, until we consider that they proclaim to discriminating females that anyone so effective must be a formidable representative of their sex; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to manage their lives so well despite such liabilities. In short, they must have reliably terrific genes. Anyone seeking to impress another might simply proclaim how wonderful he or she is, but such announcements might be sheer braggadocio unless they are allied to a guarantee that something about them is as proclaimed.
A similar reliability component operates when it comes to some otherwise perplexing behavior of prey species. Most of the time, and for understandable reasons, predator and prey each seek to remain undetected. In some cases, however – notably Thomson’s gazelles in Africa and to a lesser extent white-tailed deer in North America – prey species do something counter-intuitive when they spot a predator and when they know that the predator has seen them. Gazelles in particular frequently jump high in the air, holding their legs oddly stiff and resembling an animated four-legged pogo stick. Doing so, they make themselves more conspicuous to the predator (especially cheetahs) and expend energy that might more adaptively be used to run away. But in fact, this action – known as “stotting” – is quite adaptive, sending two messages to a hungry cheetah: for one, I have seen you, so you might as well give up chasing me because the element of surprise is foreclosed. And for another, look how strong, well-coordinated, and agile I am. Stotting is a demanding bit of gymnastics, something that only a strong, well-coordinated and agile gazelle can master. The action is its own reliability component.
Only relatively young and healthy animals stot, and predators are unlikely to try their luck against individuals who do so. Presumably, a gazelle could announce her physical fitness in other ways, but anyone – regardless of actual physical capacity – might simply lie about it. As with a bird who flaunts his fancy, expensive, inconvenient tail, a stotting gazelle is proclaiming her personal qualities, and doing so in a manner that cannot be faked.
Credibility doesn’t only count when it comes to impressing a romantic partner or a predator; it is also key when communicating threat. Here, the temptation to send dishonest messages is especially strong, since a threatening animal is trying explicitly to influence the behavior of the recipient, typically in circumstances of high tension: getting him or her to refrain from entering one’s territory, courting one’s mate, or trying to horn in on some food. The intent of the threat is often to convince the recipient to back down and decide not to challenge the threatener’s social position. This is easy enough if you are genuinely strong, fierce, well-coordinated, highly motivated, physically fit, etc., but what if you are less than imposing? Or if you are actually quite a tasty prey item, but would be more evolutionarily successful if you could convince your predators that you are actually distasteful or, better yet, downright poisonous. Maybe then, dishonesty is the best policy – unless you get caught in the lie.
In view of the high payoff that attaches to success, there is a substantial evolutionary temptation to make “empty” threats, that is, to exaggerate one’s ability to back up a threat with physical action. Doing so, however, can carry a substantial cost if the threatener’s bluff is called and it ends up in an altercation that could better have been avoided. There could also be a dangerously negative effect on one’s reputation. Although human beings take comfort when a dog’s (or a person’s) bark is worse than its bite, the cost of being branded a paper tiger or biteless barker can be quite serious. The temptation to make empty threats is accordingly leavened by the cost of being found out.
Among human beings, we like to think, honesty is the best policy, at least in part because as in the biological world, people must often confront a practical problem: liars run the risk of being tripped up in their dishonesty, when and if their bluff is called. Our species has some options that are analogous to reliability components among animals, including the swearing of religious oaths and criminal punishments for lying, but one of the most important is – if not a human specialty – something uniquely elaborated in the human species: reputation and the pressure to uphold it. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was eager to convince America’s allies of the legitimacy of his claim that the Soviet Union had begun placing intermediate range missiles in Cuba. Toward that end, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson was dispatched to Paris where he offered to show photographic proof to President de Gaulle, who responded that he didn’t need to see any; the word of the US President was sufficient.
Presidents have long been concerned, and for good reasons, to ensure that their statements are reliable, thereby enhancing the prospect that they would be believed, especially when the stakes are high. Which brings us back to Mr. Trump. Insofar as the current president has established a reputation when it comes to truth-telling, it is precisely in the opposite direction. He appears not to care about the reliability of his communication: when caught in a lie, he typically just doubles down. It is nearly impossible to imagine a world leader echoing de Gaulle that the word of the US President is enough for her or him.
This has implications for the threats and lies already applied to North Korea, Iran, immigrants, even our allies in NATO and elsewhere. How ironic - and yet consistent with animal behavior research - that as a result, Mr. Trump's credibility (and by extension, that of the US) is lower than that of a collared lizard or a jumping gazelle.
David P. Barash is professor of psychology emeritus at the University of Washington. Among his recent books is Through a Glass Brightly: using science to see our species as it really is (2018, Oxford University Press).
