Where does handicap collide?

In evolutionary biology the handicap principle holds that an extravagant trait can be an honest signal precisely because it is costly: only a high-quality individual can afford to carry a liability like the peacock’s cumbersome tail and still survive, so the handicap cannot be faked by a weaker rival. Zahavi’s 1975 Mate selection—A selection for a handicap argued that the cost itself is what guarantees the signal’s reliability to a choosing mate. The referent is a fitness-reducing trait maintained by selection as a credible advertisement of quality, and it has nothing to do with a wagering margin or a measure of disability beyond the shared meaning of a self-imposed disadvantage.[1]

Unit

The fitness cost a signalling trait imposes on its bearer

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by the survival or condition cost of the trait and its correlation with signaller quality and mating success

In the World Health Organization’s 1980 disablement framework, a handicap is the social and environmental disadvantage a person experiences in fulfilling a normal role, arising from an impairment or disability. The International classification of impairments, disabilities, and handicaps deliberately separated three levels (impairment at the organ, disability at the person, and handicap at the level of social role), so handicap names the disadvantage in context rather than the bodily condition itself. The referent is a role-level disadvantage relative to social expectations, an entirely different construct from a biological costly signal or a betting spread, joined to them only by the idea of a disadvantage.[2]

Unit

The degree of disadvantage in fulfilling expected social roles

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Classified against expected roles (orientation, independence, occupation, social integration) in the ICIDH dimensions