It is important to make our own judgments about people, situations, and their qualities. Maintaining an open mind is always very important. This is especially true when it comes to personal prejudices.

But symbols help us navigate the world much more quickly. People use the symbols that mark them as certain professions, as interested in certain hobbies, or as having certain other traits because it reduces the load on others' cognitive systems.

For example, if no one used identity signals, every time I moved and needed to find new friends, I would have a much harder time finding my "tribe."

Without identity symbols, hiring managers would work a lot more slowly. This might be better in some cases, but worse in others.

Again, not advocating to rely exclusively on symbols. Open minds are always important.

But just think for a minute about how many judgments and decisions you would need to make on a daily basis if all of those symbols were suddenly gone. You would get a lot less done. People have invented all sorts of ways to reduce the load on their cognitive systems because we can only process so much. Identity signalling is just one of those cognitive load reduction strategies.