Recreational Drug Use and Fluctuating Asymmetry: Testing the Handicap Principle

Zahavi's handicap principle suggests that only organisms with good genetic quality can afford to engage in costly behaviors. Recreational drug use can be harmful to one's health and therefore might be viewed as a costly signal of one's genetic quality. One of the measurements of genetic quality is bodily symmetry assessed by fluctuating asymmetry. If unhealthy drug use is a behavioral example of Zahavi's handicap principle, then men who use...