The evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma game in continuous signed networks

Abstract

Cooperative evolutionary games have been a focus in various subjects, but the discussion on signed networks is lacking, especially when players are assumed to have different degree of closeness with others, i.e. continuous signed network. To fill this gap, we introduce a negativity coefficient that responds to the effect of negative relationships and a new strategy imitation method that applies to continuous networks. The simulation results show the necessity of negative relations that promotes cooperation, and the increase of the influence of negative relations facilitates the generation of cooperative behaviors. The edge updating in adaptive networks promote cooperation but has little impact when negative edge influence is small. The experiments also prove that structural balance is helpful for increasing the share of cooperators in the evolution.