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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

The HoneyComb Paradigm for Research on Collective Human Behavior
Published on: January 19, 2019
Diversity of reproduction time scale promotes cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma games
Zhi-Xi Wu1, Zhihai Rong, Petter Holme
1Department of Physics, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden. zhi-xi.wu@physics.umu.se
Abstract:
We study an evolutionary spatial prisoner's dilemma game where the fitness of the players is determined by both the payoffs from the current interaction and their history. We consider the situation where the selection time scale is slower than the interaction time scale. This is done by implementing probabilistic reproduction on an individual level. We observe that both too fast and too slow reproduction rates hamper the emergence of cooperation. In other words, there exists an intermediate selection time scale that maximizes cooperation. Another factor we find to promote cooperation is a diversity of reproduction time scales.
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