Cooperation In Social Dilemmas Research Articles

Granting leaders priority exit options promotes and jeopardizes cooperation in social dilemmas

Cooperation in human interactions often involves voluntary participation rather than obligatory requirements. This paper investigates the impact of voluntary exit strategies on cooperation within scale-free networks, employing spatial prisoner’s dilemma games as the framework. We analyze three distinct exit strategies: leader priority exit, fringe priority exit, and random exit, across varying dilemma strengths. Our findings reveal that in scenarios of weak dilemma strength, leader priority exit significantly diminishes cooperation, particularly when only a small subset of players is granted exit rights. In contrast, under strong dilemma strength conditions, both leader priority and random exits serve to unexpectedly bolster cooperation. This enhancement is primarily facilitated by high-degree nodes opting out, thereby enabling low-degree nodes to establish stable cooperation. Furthermore, our study underscores the pivotal role of network structure. In assortative networks, random exit emerges as the most effective strategy in promoting cooperation. On the other hand, disassortative networks exhibit a substantial increase in cooperation levels when employing leader priority exit. These results highlight the intricate interplay between exit strategies, dilemma strength, and network topology, offering critical insights for promoting cooperation in varied social contexts.

Efficiency and resilience of cooperation in asymmetric social dilemmas

Direct reciprocity is a powerful mechanism for cooperation in social dilemmas. The very logic of reciprocity, however, seems to require that individuals are symmetric, and that everyone has the same means to influence each others' payoffs. Yet in many applications, individuals are asymmetric. Herein, we study the effect of asymmetry in linear public good games. Individuals may differ in their endowments (their ability to contribute to a public good) and in their productivities (how effective their contributions are). Given the individuals' productivities, we ask which allocation of endowments is optimal for cooperation. To this end, we consider two notions of optimality. The first notion focuses on the resilience of cooperation. The respective endowment distribution ensures that full cooperation is feasible even under the most adverse conditions. The second notion focuses on efficiency. The corresponding endowment distribution maximizes group welfare. Using analytical methods, we fully characterize these two endowment distributions. This analysis reveals that both optimality notions favor some endowment inequality: More productive players ought to get higher endowments. Yet the two notions disagree on how unequal endowments are supposed to be. A focus on resilience results in less inequality. With additional simulations, we show that the optimal endowment allocation needs to account for both the resilience and the efficiency of cooperation.

‘I don’t want to play with you anymore’: dynamic partner judgements in moody reinforcement learners playing the prisoner’s dilemma

Abstract Emerging reinforcement learning algorithms that utilize human traits as part of their conceptual architecture have been demonstrated to encourage cooperation in social dilemmas when compared to their unaltered origins. In particular, the addition of a mood mechanism facilitates more cooperative behaviour in multi-agent iterated prisoner dilemma (IPD) games, for both static and dynamic network contexts. Mood-altered agents also exhibit humanlike behavioural trends when environmental aspects of the dilemma are altered, such as the structure of the payoff matrix used. It is possible that other environmental effects from both human and agent-based research will interact with moody structures in previously unstudied ways. As the literature on these interactions is currently small, we seek to expand on previous research by introducing two more environmental dimensions; voluntary interaction in dynamic networks, and stability of interaction through varied network restructuring. From an initial Erdos–Renyi random network, we manipulate the structure of a network IPD according to existing methodology in human-based research, to investigate possible replication of their findings. We also facilitated strategic selection of opponents through the introduction of two partner evaluation mechanisms and tested two selection thresholds for each. We found that even minimally strategic play termination in dynamic networks is enough to enhance cooperation above a static level, though the thresholds for these strategic decisions are critical to desired outcomes. More forgiving thresholds lead to better maintenance of cooperation between kinder strategies than stricter ones, despite overall cooperation levels being relatively low. Additionally, moody reinforcement learning combined with certain play termination decision strategies can mimic trends in human cooperation affected by structural changes to the IPD played on dynamic networks—as can kind and simplistic strategies such as Tit-For-Tat. Implications of this in comparison with human data is discussed, and suggestions for diversification of further testing are made.

The influence of environment-based reputation on cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma game

Research has shown that reputation mechanism can be effective in facilitating the generation and maintenance of cooperation in social dilemmas. In the traditional reputation mechanism, the amount of change in reputation is fixed. However, in real life, people's impression scores of a player are often influenced by the environment in which he lives. In other words, we prefer to celebrate the cooperative heroes who are surrounded by defectors and spurn the defectors who are hidden among the many cooperators. Thus, this paper proposes an environment-based reputation model, in which the increment of a player's reputation will be influenced by the local and global environment. The results of the research indicate that the greater the intensity of the environmental influence, the more it promotes the evolution of cooperation. It is worth noting that the local and global environmental focus shows peculiarities. Focusing on the global environment can improve the fraction of cooperators at low defection temptations while focusing on the local environment will facilitate cooperators’ survival at higher defection temptations.

The role of Far-Sighted agents on the evolution of cooperation in social dilemma

Why would natural selection facilitate the prevailing cooperation in selfish groups of individuals? A common framework for studying this problem is evolutionary game theory. Here, we propose a new strategy update rule, called the far-Sighted update rule, that enables agents to take into account the possible responses of their neighbors, which means a far-Sighted agent does not have a short-sighted, static view of the environment but rather a long-term view that considers environmental changes. We study the effect of the far-Sighted update rule on behavioral evolution in two cases. The level of cooperation can be significantly promoted for populations of myopic agents acting with a certain probability with the far-Sighted update rule. The cooperation rate of the population did not drop below a threshold even under very hostile conditions. Moreover, the stronger the intelligence’s willingness to consider long-term views is, the larger this threshold will be. The theoretical results of the mean field are consistent with the simulation results. However, for far-Sighted agents, which act exactly as far-Sighted update rule, it shows sensitivity to the network structure. In a mixed population of far-Sighted agents and myopic agents, even if all myopic agents become defectors, the far-Sighted agents can still maintain a certain cooperator ratio. Thus, our work can help to understand the evolution of populations of agents with a higher intelligence that can consider environmental changes.

Partner choice and cooperation in social dilemmas can increase resource inequality

Cooperation is more likely when individuals can choose their interaction partner. However, partner choice may be detrimental in unequal societies, in which individuals differ in available resources and productivity, and thus in their attractiveness as interaction partners. Here we experimentally examine this conjecture in a repeated public goods game. Individuals (n = 336), participating in groups of eight participants, are assigned a high or low endowment and a high or low productivity factor (the value that their cooperation generates), creating four unique participant types. On each round, individuals are either assigned a partner (assigned partner condition) or paired based on their self-indicated preference for a partner type (partner choice condition). Results show that under partner choice, individuals who were assigned a high endowment and high productivity almost exclusively interact with each other, forcing other individuals into less valuable pairs. Consequently, pre-existing resource differences between individuals increase. These findings show how partner choice in social dilemmas can amplify resource inequality.

Not Nature Exposure but Awe Promotes Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the experience of awe and cooperative behavior, with a particular focus on the mediating role of the small-self concept. Theoretical framework: Drawing on social-psychological and emotion theories, this study proposed an integrative model that includes two key variables: the experience of awe, elicited by various stimuli, and the small-self concept. It hypothesized that individuals who experience awe would exhibit increased cooperative behavior and that the small-self concept would mediate this relationship. Method: Across three studies, diverse methodologies and measures were employed, including Common-Pool Resource Dilemmas and Public Goods Games, to assess levels of cooperation. The Awe Scale and Perceived Self-Size Scale were also utilized to measure awe and the small-self concept, respectively. In total, 320 participants were engaged in the study, being assigned to different experimental and control conditions. Results and conclusion: The results consistently demonstrated that the experience of awe led to an increased willingness to cooperate across all studies. It was also discovered that the small-self concept played a complete mediating role in the relationship between the experience of awe and cooperative behavior, confirming the hypotheses. These findings remained robust even when different awe-inducing stimuli were employed, such as pictures of nature, images of architecture, or videos of an infant. Search implications: Our findings underscore the importance of the awe experience as a potential driver of cooperative behavior. The results contribute to a better understanding of the emotional and cognitive processes underlying cooperation, suggesting that fostering awe experiences in individuals may be a promising avenue for promoting cooperative behavior. Future research should explore the practical applications of our findings in fields such as conflict resolution, environmental conservation, and social cooperation. Originality value: This research uniquely contributes to the literature by integrating the concept of awe and small-self within the context of cooperative behavior. It adds to the existing body of knowledge by providing a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms that influence cooperative behavior. This study presents a novel approach by examining the mediating role of the small-self concept, offering new insights into how awe experiences can impact cooperation.

Self-organization in mobile populations promotes the evolution of altruistic punishment

Altruistic punishment has been shown to sustain cooperation in social dilemmas. However, the influence of individual migration has often been overlooked in previous studies investigating the emergence of altruistic punishment. In this study, we address this gap by exploring the evolution of altruistic punishment in a mobile population. To capture the complexities of individual migration decisions, we propose a weighted migration model that incorporates individuals’ assessments of potential gains and losses. Our findings reveal that migration prioritizing potential benefits contributes to population clustering, and such spatial self-organization patterns play a vital role in promoting the flourishing of altruistic punishment. Conversely, when individuals are more inclined to avoid losses, it intensifies the dissolution of cooperative clusters and inhibits the evolution of cooperation. Moreover, our results suggest that pro-social punishment can still be maintained during the migration process, even in scenarios with low punishment efficiency, as long as individuals are capable of imposing sufficiently large amounts of punishments. This study provides valuable insights into the emergence and maintenance of altruistic punishment.

Success-rate-driven strategy updating enhances cooperation in social dilemmas

Strategy updates play an important role in the evolution of cooperation. In traditional imitation rules, it is assumed that strategic learning is driven by payoff bias. In this study, a modified Fermi rule was proposed, in which payoff and success-rate are synthetically considered to determine players’ strategy updates. It is assumed that individuals have an immediate memory length M, and that success can be measured by using an identical aspiration level a as a benchmark. Success-rate is defined in the frequency that an individual’s payoff equals or exceeds the benchmark a within the memory length M. Numerical simulations conducted by considering the two factors in the strategy update show that cooperation can be facilitated compared to the traditional version. Using the identical aspiration level a as benchmark, the results show that there is a clear phase shift phenomenon in enhancing cooperation. This implies that different b will have an appropriate aspiration interval to achieve optimal cooperation. Moreover, only a moderate immediate memory length can facilitate cooperation. The proposed mechanism is highly robust and can provide valuable insights into the emergence and maintenance of cooperation.

Harmful strong agents and asymmetric interaction can promote the frequency of cooperation in the snowdrift game

The emergence and mechanism of cooperation in social dilemmas have always been fundamental issues in evolutionary game theory. In this paper, we study the snowdrift game, in which individuals in a stronger position can gain additional benefits in cooperation with weaker individuals due to differences in status. Meanwhile, innocuous-type strong individuals will not harm their partners’ interests, while harmful-type ones will. In a mixed population, the strong individuals in these two asymmetric snowdrift games are more inclined to cooperate, but the weaker ones are more willing to choose defection. The average cooperation frequency is not lower than in symmetric populations. In structured populations, on the other hand, asymmetry promotes the formation of a configuration with a cooperator cluster with a core of strong cooperators, thereby promoting cooperation among individuals. However, only within a small range of parameters the frequency of cooperation will be slightly reduced. Harmful-type strong individuals can be more conducive to promoting cooperation than innocuous-type ones in some cases. The existence of harmful and strong individuals in the snowdrift game further helps to solve the social loafing effect.

Ranking-randomness-mechanism promotes cooperation in social dilemmas

Ranking-randomness-mechanism promotes cooperation in social dilemmas

Reputation and reciprocity.

Reputation and reciprocity are key mechanisms for cooperation in human societies, often going hand in hand to favor prosocial behavior over selfish actions. Here we review recent researches at the interface of physics and evolutionary game theory that explored these two mechanisms. We focus on image scoring as the bearer of reputation, as well as on various types of reciprocity, including direct, indirect, and network reciprocity. We review different definitions of reputation and reciprocity dynamics, and we show how these affect the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. We consider first-order, second-order, as well as higher-order models in well-mixed and structured populations, and we review experimental works that support and inform the results of mathematical modeling and simulations. We also provide a synthesis of the reviewed researches along with an outlook in terms of six directions that seem particularly promising to explore in the future.

Dual effects of conformity on the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas.

Human beings are easily impacted by social influences, due to their social nature. As an essential manifestation of social influences, conformity is associated with the frequency witnessed in others' behavior, involving normative conformity and informational conformity according to the reaction of individuals. The former comes from the fear of a normative environment, while the latter means most behaviors are followed due to information asymmetry. Normative conformity significantly enhances network reciprocity, producing optimal cooperation at a moderate proportion, which induces within-cluster behavioral homogeneity and between-cluster behavioral diversity. On the contrary, informational conformity has an inhibitory effect on the evolution of cooperation for a low proportion of the conformity population, which contributes to the formation of defectors' clusters. The symmetry and duality of the two types of conformity on cooperation evolution provide an interesting and unexplored approach for future research, revealing the mechanism of conformity in evolutionary games.

Weighted-elite-memory mechanism enhances cooperation in social dilemmas

The issue of how to enhance cooperation has been a hot topic of research in evolutionary games for a long time. A mechanism is proposed to facilitate the cooperation behavior of evolutionary groups on networks in three game models, including prisoner's dilemma, snowdrift game, and stag hunt game. The core of the mechanism lies in: 1) Each player has a length of memory and uses the information of the elite in the memory span to update its strategy. 2) Each player has the chance to game with a certain neighbor more than once in each round. 3) The accumulative payoff of a player consists of two parts, one from playing with elites in memory length and another from playing with current neighbors, and a weight is introduced to adjust these two parts. The findings of the simulation demonstrate that a small weight can significantly enhance cooperation in three typical social dilemmas. Furthermore, the level of cooperation increases at first and then stays stable as the memory length increases.

Emergence of specialized third-party enforcement

The question of how cooperation evolves and is maintained among nonkin is central to the biological, social, and behavioral sciences. Previous research has focused on explaining how cooperation in social dilemmas can be maintained by direct and indirect reciprocity among the participants of the social dilemma. However, in complex human societies, both modern and ancient, cooperation is frequently maintained by means of specialized third-party enforcement. We provide an evolutionary-game-theoretic model that explains how specialized third-party enforcement of cooperation (specialized reciprocity) can emerge. A population consists of producers and enforcers. First, producers engage in a joint undertaking represented by a prisoner's dilemma. They are paired randomly and receive no information about their partner's history, which precludes direct and indirect reciprocity. Then, enforcers tax producers and may punish their clients. Finally, the enforcers are randomly paired and may try to grab resources from each other. In order to sustain producer cooperation, enforcers must punish defecting producers, but punishing is costly to enforcers. We show that the threat of potential intraenforcer conflict can incentivize enforcers to engage in costly punishment of producers, provided they are sufficiently informed to maintain a reputation system. That is, the "guards" are guarded by the guards themselves. We demonstrate the key mechanisms analytically and corroborate our results with numerical simulations.

Complex interactions promote the frequency of cooperation in snowdrift game

The emergence and maintains of cooperation in social dilemmas is one of the most popular problem in evolutionary game theory. In this paper, we consider the influence of complex interactions in evolutionary game theory. We consider a situation that some individuals may get additional benefits in snowdrift game without the detriment of the co-player because of difference in status, like good reputation of assisting the weak. We find that the replicator dynamics of asymmetric snowdrift game have one boundary stable equilibrium, which is affected by the asymmetry of the interaction and the proportion of strong individuals. The stable equilibrium shows that strong individuals are willing to choose cooperation and weak individuals are willing to choose defection. In this case, the average frequency of cooperation is not less than the equilibrium frequency of cooperators with only symmetric interactions. In addition, complex interactions in spatially organized populations causes weak individuals to mimic the strategies of strong neighbors. Strong individuals with great benefit are willing to choose cooperation, and cooperators create a cluster with a core of strong cooperators and weak cooperators outside. For a wide range of parameters, the frequency of cooperation among weak individuals grows dramatically. Complex interactions frequently improves the frequency of cooperation while decreasing the frequency of cooperation slightly only over a narrow range of parameter. Because of the high frequency of cooperation, complex interactions can roughly solve the paradox in the snowdrift game.

Continuous Spatial Public Goods Game Based on Particle Swarm Optimization with Memory Stability

Public goods games have been extensively studied to determine the mechanism behind cooperation in social dilemmas. Previous public goods games based on particle swarm algorithms enabled individuals to integrate their past best strategies with the current best strategies of their neighbors, which can effectively promote cooperation. In this paper, we introduce the concept of memory stability and explore the effects of different memory stability coefficients on strategy distribution, strategy update rate, and average cooperation level. Our simulation results showed that, in the case of a very high propensity coefficient, infinite memory stability coefficients cannot reach a high level of cooperation, while reducing memory stability can reach a very high level of cooperation. At a low enhancement factor, weakening memory stability decreased the average cooperation level, while at a higher enhancement factor, a weakening memory stability greatly increased the average group cooperation level. Our study provides new insights into the application of particle swarm algorithms to public goods games.

Cross-cultural variation in cooperation: A meta-analysis.

Impersonal cooperation among strangers enables societies to create valuable public goods, such as infrastructure, public services, and democracy. Several factors have been proposed to explain variation in impersonal cooperation across societies, referring to institutions (e.g., rule of law), religion (e.g., belief in God as a third-party punisher), cultural beliefs (e.g., trust) and values (e.g., collectivism), and ecology (e.g., relational mobility). We tested 17 preregistered hypotheses in a meta-analysis of 1,506 studies of impersonal cooperation in social dilemmas (e.g., the Public Goods Game) conducted across 70 societies (k = 2,271), where people make costly decisions to cooperate among strangers. After controlling for 10 study characteristics that can affect the outcome of studies, we found very little cross-societal variation in impersonal cooperation. Categorizing societies into cultural groups explained no variance in cooperation. Similarly, cultural, ancestral, and linguistic distance between societies explained little variance in cooperation. None of the cross-societal factors hypothesized to relate to impersonal cooperation explained variance in cooperation across societies. We replicated these conclusions when meta-analyzing 514 studies across 41 states and nine regions in the United States (k = 783). Thus, we observed that impersonal cooperation occurred in all societies-and to a similar degree across societies-suggesting that prior research may have overemphasized the magnitude of differences between modern societies in impersonal cooperation. We discuss the discrepancy between theory, past empirical research and the meta-analysis, address a limitation of experimental research on cooperation to study culture, and raise possible directions for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

How “punishing evil and promoting good” promotes cooperation in social dilemma

In this paper, based on the social dilemma model, we introduce the punishing evil and promoting good strategy, whose basic strategy is to cooperate, while to obtain benefits at the cost of payment. Specifically, when the person who punishes evil and promotes good plays a game with the cooperator, his contributions will bring the same benefits to both parties, reflecting the promoting good. However, when the person who punishes evil and promotes good plays a game with the defector, making the benefit of the defector loss and become his own benefit, reflecting the punishing evil. The results show that when only the role of punishing evil is considered, increasing punishment strength can easily make those punishing evil and promoting good and ordinary cooperators appear. But only increasing the punishment is not enough to weed out the defectors. When only the effect of promoting good is considered, under a smaller temptation to defection, the increase of the reward strength can transform the system from a full defection state to a full cooperation state. Whereas when the temptation is greater, the increase in the reward is not enough for the cooperator to survive and only defectors exist in the system at this time. In addition, there exist combinations of minimum values of punishment and reward that bring the system to a defector-free state. In conclusion, our study finds effective intervals for promoting the development of those who punish evil and promote good and ordinary cooperators, respectively.

Being Negatively Cued, are People Less Cooperative? The Influence of Watching Eyes on Cooperative Behavior.

In the course of human evolution, watching eyes have had an important influence on individual cooperative behavior. However, researchers have not explored how the valence of watching eyes affects cooperative behavior. Therefore, this study includes three studies to investigate the effect of watching eyes with different valences on cooperative behavior. The results showed that positive watching eyes (vs. negative watching eyes) induced positive emotions (PA) in the participants and thus increased their tendency to cooperate (Studies 1-2). The role of the decision maker (making decisions for oneself vs. making decisions on behalf of others) moderates the effect of watching eyes on cooperative behavior through emotion (Study 3). In conclusion, the valence of watching eyes significantly affects cooperation. This study not only further enriches research on environmental stimulation and cooperation but also provides inspiration and a reference for solving problems of cooperation in social dilemmas.