scholarly journals Honesty needs no cost: beneficial signals can be honest and evolutionarily stable

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Számadó
Keyword(s):  
Marginal Cost ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Handicap Principle ◽  
Honest Signalling ◽  
Honest Signals ◽  
Simple Action ◽  
Costly Signals ◽  
Evolutionarily Stable

AbstractHow and why animals communicate honestly is a key issue in biology. The role of signal cost is strongly entrenched in the maintenance in honest signalling. The handicap principle claims that honest signals have to be costly at the equilibrium and this cost is a theoretical necessity. The handicap principle further claims that signalling is fundamentally different from any other adaptation because honest signalling would collapse in the absence of cost. Here I investigate this claim in simple action-response game where signals do not have any cost, instead they have benefits. I show that such beneficial signals can be honest and evolutionarily stable. These signals can be beneficial to both high and low-quality signallers independently of the receiver’s response, yet they can maintain honest signalling just as much as costly signals. Signal cost-at or out of equilibrium-is not a necessary condition of honesty. Benefit functions can maintain honest signalling as long as the marginal cost-loss of benefit-is high enough for potential cheaters.

scholarly journals The role of equilibrium cost in the evolution of honest signalling: waste or optimal investment?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Számadó ◽  
Dustin J. Penn
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Optimal Investment ◽  
Cost Models ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Honest Signalling ◽  
Honest Signals ◽  
Differential Costs ◽  
The Cost

AbstractThe relationship between signal cost and honesty is a controversial and unresolved issue. The handicap principle assumes that signals must be costly at equilibrium to be honest, and the greater the cost, the more reliable the signal. However, theoretical models and simulations question the necessity of equilibrium cost for the evolution of honest signalling. Honest signals can evolve without costs, and they can evolve through differential benefits with no need for differential costs. Here we investigate the role of equilibrium signal cost in the evolution of honest signals in both differential benefit and differential cost models using an agent-based simulation. We found that there is an optimal investment paid by honest individual that allows for the highest level of honesty when there is correlation between signal cost paid by low and high-quality individuals. This holds for both differential benefit and differential cost models as long there is a correlation between signal cost paid by low and high quality individuals. However, increasing equilibrium signal cost poses an obstacle and hinders the evolution of honest signalling when there is no correlation between the cost paid by low and high-quality individuals. Last but not least, we found that the potential cost of cheating is a much better predictor of honesty than the equilibrium cost paid by honest signallers.

scholarly journals Attention seeking in a spatially explicit game of mate choice and the evolution of dimorphic ornaments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Számadó
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Spatially Explicit ◽  
Handicap Principle ◽  
Explicit Model ◽  
Spatially Explicit Model ◽  
Continuous Signal ◽  
Simple Action ◽  
Costly Signals ◽  
The Cost

AbstractThe evolution of conspicuous signals fascinated biologist ever since Darwin. The Handicap Principle was dominant explanation in the last decades; it proposed that exaggerated and conspicuous signals are costly signals of quality. There are other less popular explanations however, one them is that conspicuous signals function to call the attention of potential receivers. These ‘attention seeking displays’ need not reveal the quality of the signaller. There are many empirical examples and recently the idea was modelled in terms of a simple action-response game. However, action-response games model an interaction of a pair of signaller and receiver, thus they omit potential competition between signallers, which could be a crucial force behind the evolution of attention-seeking displays. Here I model this competition in a spatially explicit model of mate choice where males can give a continuous signal to call the attention of potential mates. The results show that attention-seeking displays readily evolve to the allowed maximum when the cost of signalling is low. However, dimorphism evolves when the cost of signalling is high. The population consist of two types of males at this dimorphic state: males that do not give a signals and males that give the highest intensity signal possible. The results show that variation in quality is not a necessary requirement for the evolution of dimorphic traits.

scholarly journals Condition-dependent trade-offs maintain honest signaling: A laboratory experiment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Számadó ◽  
Flóra Samu ◽  
Károly Takács
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Honest Signaling ◽  
Handicap Principle ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Honest Signals ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

AbstractHow and why animals and humans signal reliably is a key issue in biology and social sciences. For many years the dominant paradigm in biology was the Handicap Principle. It claims a causal relationship between honesty and signal cost and thus predicts that honest signals have to be costly to produce. However, contrary to the Handicap Principle, game theoretical models predict that honest signaling is maintained by condition dependent signaling trade-offs and honest signals need not be costly at the equilibrium. Due to the difficulties of manipulating signal cost and signal trade-offs there is surprisingly little evidence to test these predictions either from biology or from social sciences. Here we conduct a human laboratory experiment with a two-factorial design to test the role of equilibrium signal cost vs. signalling trade-offs in the maintenance of honest communication. We have found that the trade-off condition has much higher influence on the reliability of communication than the equilibrium cost condition. The highest level of honesty was observed in the condition dependent trade-off condition as predicted by recent models. Negative production cost, i.e. fix benefit-contrary to the prediction of the Handicap Principle-promoted even higher level of honesty than the other type of costs under this condition.

The Temptations of Christ and Other Stories

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines biblical narratives to illuminate the role of Christ’s passion and death in bringing a person to a life in grace. Reflection on the narratives shows that Christ’s passion and death are a most promising way for God to help a human person to the surrender which is the necessary condition for spiritual and moral regeneration. The stories of the temptations of Christ show the way in which Christ’s suffering and death are connected to justification and sanctification. A person’s ceasing to resist the grace of God and surrendering to God’s love is the pinnacle on which her salvation has to stand. If we focus on this necessary condition for salvation, we can see the reason for Christ’s suffering. What can be gained by weakness that could not be gotten through power is the melting of a heart accustomed to willed loneliness and hardened against joy.

scholarly journals Cultural diversity and wisdom of crowds are mutually beneficial and evolutionarily stable

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoît de Courson ◽  
Léo Fitouchi ◽  
Jean-Philippe Bouchaud ◽  
Michael Benzaquen
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Wisdom Of Crowds ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Evolutionarily Stable ◽  
Individual Information

AbstractThe ability to learn from others (social learning) is often deemed a cause of human species success. But if social learning is indeed more efficient (whether less costly or more accurate) than individual learning, it raises the question of why would anyone engage in individual information seeking, which is a necessary condition for social learning’s efficacy. We propose an evolutionary model solving this paradox, provided agents (i) aim not only at information quality but also vie for audience and prestige, and (ii) do not only value accuracy but also reward originality—allowing them to alleviate herding effects. We find that under some conditions (large enough success rate of informed agents and intermediate taste for popularity), both social learning’s higher accuracy and the taste for original opinions are evolutionarily-stable, within a mutually beneficial division of labour-like equilibrium. When such conditions are not met, the system most often converges towards mutually detrimental equilibria.

scholarly journals What maintains signal honesty in animal colour displays used in mate choice?

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1724) ◽  
pp. 20160343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Weaver ◽  
Rebecca E. Koch ◽  
Geoffrey E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Female Mate Choice ◽  
Honest Signalling ◽  
Honest Signals ◽  
Explicit Consideration ◽  
Signal Honesty ◽  
Physiological Pathways ◽  
Index Hypothesis ◽  
Male Ornaments ◽  
Colour Signals

Many of the colour displays of animals are proposed to have evolved in response to female mate choice for honest signals of quality, but such honest signalling requires mechanisms to prevent cheating. The most widely accepted and cited mechanisms for ensuring signal honesty are based on the costly signalling hypothesis, which posits that costs associated with ornamentation prevent low-quality males from being highly ornamented. Alternatively, by the index hypothesis, honesty can be achieved via cost-free mechanisms if ornament production is causally linked to core physiological pathways. In this essay, we review how a costly signalling framework has shaped empirical research in mate choice for colourful male ornaments and emphasize that alternative interpretations are plausible under an index signalling framework. We discuss the challenges in both empirically testing and distinguishing between the two hypotheses, noting that they need not be mutually exclusive. Finally, we advocate for a comprehensive approach to studies of colour signals that includes the explicit consideration of cost-free mechanisms for honesty. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Animal coloration: production, perception, function and application’.

Post-Mass-Media and Participation

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Research Group ◽  
Felix Guattari ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
New Generation

Three decades after Félix Guattari introduced the concept of "post-mass-media" as a necessary condition of media participation, it is by no means self-evident that his reaction to events leading up to 1989 would still attract a new generation of scholars today. Yet, the concept continually reappears to address the role of technology in democratic participation and the relation between the aesthetic and the political. Originating in discussions of the DFG research group Media and Participation, this issu

Social protests, discontent and politics in southern and eastern Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria da Paz Campos Lima ◽  
Antonio Martín Artiles
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Social Protests

Taking into consideration the debate on the role of social movements and of trade unions in organising social protests, in the light of contentious and conventional politics, this article examines participation in demonstrations in Europe and the political attitudes of the participants. The article uses data from the European Social Survey to examine the differences and similarities between European countries in respect of mobilisation levels over the past decade, arguing that distrust and dissatisfaction with political institutions might be a necessary condition but not a sufficient one to justify resorting to contentious politics. The article reveals the contrasts between the levels of mobilisation in southern European countries (Portugal and Spain) and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Hungary and Poland) and examines the patterns and (re)configuration of the profile of the protestors in the 2002–2014 period.

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