text: An organism behaves altruistically and the recipient does not reciprocate but has an increased chance of acting in a way that is selfish but also as a byproduct benefits the altruist.Costly signaling and the handicap principle.Altruism, by diverting resources from the altruist, can act as an "honest signal" of available resources and the skills to acquire them.This may signal to others that the altruist is a valuable potential partner.It may also signal interactive and cooperative intentions, since someone who does not expect to interact further in the future gains nothing from such costly signaling.While it's uncertain if costly signaling can predict long-term cooperative traits, people tend to trust helpers more.Costly signaling loses its value when everyone shares identical traits, resources, and cooperative intentions, but it gains significance as population variability in these aspects increases.Hunters who share meat display a costly signal of ability.The research found that good hunters have higher reproductive success and more adulterous relations even if they receive no more of the hunted meat than anyone else.Similarly, holding large feasts and giving large donations are ways of demonstrating one's resources.Heroic risk-taking has also been interpreted as a costly signal of ability.Both indirect reciprocity and costly signaling depend on reputation value and tend to make similar predictions.One is that people will be more helpful when they know that their helping behavior will be communicated to people they will interact with later, publicly announced, discussed, or observed by someone else.This has been documented in many studies.The effect is sensitive to subtle cues, such as people being more helpful when there were stylized eyespots instead of a logo on a computer screen.