Abstract

It is usually assumed that each cooperator contributes equally to different public pools in spatial public goods game. However, it is more reasonable to invest differently according to individual investment preference. In this paper, an extended public goods game, in which cooperators contribute to the groups according to the investment preference, is developed. The investment preference of a cooperator is characterized by the fraction of the cooperator from his/her own memory about a group and the intensity of investment preference is represented by a tunable parameter α. The well-mixed population and the structured population are analyzed under this mechanism. It is shown that the investment preference can give rise to coordination. Moreover, the extensive numerical simulation results show that with the increasing of investment preference density or memory length, the proportion of cooperation can increase monotonously. This is because the investment preference could help cooperators resist the invasion from defectors. Compared with the basic version, the new mechanism is able to promote cooperation effectively. Our research may provide a valuable insight for further exploring the nature of cooperation in the real world.

Highlights

  • The evolution of cooperative behavior is one of the most important problems in the field of social and biological sciences [1]

  • In a public goods game (PGG), players are likely to make a contribution to the public pool

  • We show the public goods game with investment preference in the Methods before we present the results in detail

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Summary

Introduction

The evolution of cooperative behavior is one of the most important problems in the field of social and biological sciences [1]. Evolutionary game theory [2, 3] is one of the most fruitful frameworks to investigate the emergence and sustainability of cooperation. For multi-individual interactions, a primary research model is the so called public goods game (PGG) [9,10,11,12]. In a PGG, players are likely to make a contribution to the public pool. The total contributions in the public pool will be multiplied by the synergy factor r (1 < r < N). The free riders (the players who do not invest) will dominate the whole group [13,14,15] and evolutionary game theory predicts that the destruction of cooperation will lead to “tragedy of the commons” [16]

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