Restoring spatial cooperation with myopic agents in a three-strategy social dilemma

Abstract

Introducing strategy complexity into the basic conflict of cooperation and defection is a natural response to avoid the tragedy of the common state. As an intermediate approach, quasi-cooperators were recently suggested to address the original problem. In this study, we test its vitality in structured populations where players have fixed partners. Naively, the latter condition should support cooperation unambiguously via enhanced network reciprocity. However, the opposite is true because the spatial structure may provide a humbler cooperation level than a well-mixed population. This unexpected behavior can be understood if we consider that at a certain parameter interval the original prisoner’s dilemma game is transformed into a snow-drift game. If we replace the original imitating strategy protocol by assuming myopic players, the spatial population becomes a friendly environment for cooperation. This observation is valid in a huge region of parameter space. This study highlights that spatial structure can reveal a new aspect of social dilemmas when strategy complexity is introduced.