The evolution of cooperation in the presence of costs of information transfer

Abstract

Indirect reciprocity working through reputation is one of the mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation that is closed to prosocial behavior among humans. Indirect reciprocity means that players cooperate with other unfamiliar players whose reputation is good. In the previous studies, authors ignore that the process of establishing the reputation system requires some effort from observers. Here, by computer simulation, we find that indirect reciprocity dose not work in the presence of the cost of reputation building. However, in this paper, considering the cost of reputation building, we propose a model of indirect reciprocity in which introducing a punishment mechanism for observers and the section of exchanging the information of observers. we find that most of players are willing to spread the reputation of donors in this situation. Finally, reputation system can be established. Natural selection favors indirect reciprocal cooperation. Nevertheless, with the increase of the cost of reputation building, the frequency of cooperation decreases. So, in future research, our work will be dedicated to finding a better mechanism to overcome it.