Practice question · Multiple choice
The handicap principle holds that a signal is honest BECAUSE it is expensive. Why does cost enforce honesty, when a determined bluffer could presumably pay it too?
Hints
- Ask whether the same tail costs the same to a healthy peacock and a sick one.
- The principle does not need bluffing to be impossible. Only unprofitable.
Show the answer
C. Because the cost is not paid equally by high and low quality.
Why
A sickly peacock could grow a large tail; what it cannot do is grow one as cheaply. Beyond some level of extravagance the healthy male still profits and the unhealthy one does not, so honesty is enforced by the cost difference rather than good faith. Impossibility would be too strong, the force comes from faking remaining possible and unprofitable.
Practise Communication and Ritualization
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