Cooperation enhanced by moderate tolerance ranges in myopically selective interactions

Abstract

We present a mode of myopically selective interaction to study the evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game in scale-free networks. Each individual has a reputation-based tolerance range and only tends to interact with the neighbors whose reputation is within its tolerance range. Moreover, its reputation is assessed in response to the interactions in the neighborhood. Interestingly, we show that moderate values of tolerance range can result in the best promotion of cooperation due to the emergence of group selection mechanism. Furthermore, we study the effects of weighting factor in the assessment rule of reputation on the evolution of cooperation. We also show how cooperation evolves in some extended situations, where an interaction stimulus payment is considered for individuals, and where the strategy and reputation of individuals can spread simultaneously. Our results may enhance the understanding of evolutionary dynamics in graph-structured populations where individuals conditionally play with their neighbors according to some myopic selection criteria.