Improving environment drives dynamical change in social game structure.

Erika Chiba,Tatsuki Yamamoto,Takuya Okabe,Jomar F Rabajante,Satoru Morita,Maica Krizna Areja Gavina,Jerrold M Tubay,Diane Carmeliza N Cuaresma,Hiromu Ito,Jin Yoshimura

doi:10.1098/rsos.201166

Abstract

The development of cooperation in human societies is a major unsolved problem in biological and social sciences. Extensive studies in game theory have shown that cooperative behaviour can evolve only under very limited conditions or with additional complexities, such as spatial structure. Non-trivial two-person games are categorized into three types of games, namely, the prisoner's dilemma game, the chicken game and the stag hunt game. Recently, the weight-lifting game has been shown to cover all five games depending on the success probability of weight lifting, which include the above three games and two trivial cases (all cooperation and all defection; conventionally not distinguished as separate classes). Here, we introduce the concept of the environmental value of a society. Cultural development and deterioration are represented by changes in this probability. We discuss cultural evolution in human societies and the biological communities of living systems.

Highlights

Cooperative behaviour has been found extensively in both human societies and social animals [1,2,3,4]
We can view change in the environment as a dynamical shift in the environmental value, which is translated into the success probability of the weight-lifting game
The results of the proposed model are robust because these results originate from the general assumption that the probability of success increases from near 0 to 1

Summary

Introduction

Cooperative behaviour has been found extensively in both human societies and social animals [1,2,3,4]. We apply the weight-lifting game model to discuss the evolution of a cooperative society by representing the success probability as a function of a state variable, called environmental value. With this variable, we intend to express the environmental conditions experienced by society. 3 the survival of individuals is very difficult, even if all individuals help each other We interpret this situation as follows: (i) in a severe environment, the success probability of the weight-lifting game is low even when both players cooperate. We can view change in the environment as a dynamical shift in the environmental value, which is translated into the success probability of the weight-lifting game

Model and results

Discussion

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