The Handicap Principle: how an erroneous hypothesis became a scientific principle
Penn and Számadó reviewed the handicap principle critically. They argue that Zahavi's later ideas of waste and signal selection are logically flawed, that Grafen's 1990 models support a different idea Zahavi proposed in 1977, in which males adjust signal investment according to condition, and that this is a trade-off model and not a handicap model. They conclude that the principle became dominant through misinterpretation and that theoretical and empirical support for it is lacking.
Penn and Számadó reviewed the handicap principle critically. They argue that Zahavi's later ideas of waste and signal selection are logically flawed, that Grafen's 1990 models support a different idea Zahavi proposed in 1977, in which males adjust signal investment according to condition, and that this is a trade-off model and not a handicap model. They conclude that the principle became dominant through misinterpretation and that theoretical and empirical support for it is lacking.
Written from the abstract, PMC record, 2026-11-01.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Penn, D. J., & Számadó, S. (2020). The Handicap Principle: how an erroneous hypothesis became a scientific principle. Biological Reviews, 95(1), 267-290. doi:10.1111/brv.12563 https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12563