The Validity of the Handicap Principle in Discrete Action–Response Games

✍ Scribed by Szabolcs Számadó

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 172 KB
• Volume: 198
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.1999.0935

✦ Synopsis

The validity of the handicap principle has spawned much debate in spite of the existence of a formal treatment. Simple models constructed to further investigate the issue were able both to prove and to disprove some of its claims. Here I show with the aid of a more general model, which takes into account both assumptions presented in these previous simple models: (1) that the previous results are not in con#ict since they can be obtained as speci"c cases of this general model; (2) that ESS communication need not use costly signals, that is, even under con#ict of interest, the cost of a signal used by a high-quality individual can be zero (or even negative) provided that the cost for low-quality signallers is high enough; (3) that only the cost relative to the bene"ts of the interaction should be higher for worse signallers; and (4) that in a discrete model the di!erential cost is only a necessary but not a su$cient condition for evolutionarily stable reliable communication.