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Unified and simple understanding for the evolution of conditional cooperators.
1Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Oiwake-cho, Kitashirakawa, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan; Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Datun Road, Chaoyang, Beijing 100101, PR China.
Mathematical Biosciences
|November 7, 2016
Summary
Conditional cooperators thrive when retaliation is high, making them resilient to defectors. Niceness, optimism, and generosity can be unified under a "cooperative" parameter, favored by natural selection when retaliation is strong.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary game theory
- Behavioral economics
- Social dynamics
Background:
- Cooperation is a complex phenomenon observed in nature, often explained by repeated interactions.
- Conditional cooperation, where individuals cooperate based on past interactions, is a key strategy.
- Previous research identified niceness, optimism, generosity, and retaliation as distinct traits of conditional cooperators.
Purpose of the Study:
- To unify the understanding of conditional cooperator traits.
- To analyze the stability of conditional cooperators against unconditional defectors using evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) analysis.
- To investigate the impact of different traits on the stability and evolution of cooperation.
Main Methods:
- Studying the iterated prisoner's dilemma game, specifically additive games.
- Employing evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) analysis.
- Examining the robustness of findings with the inclusion of behavioral mistakes.
Main Results:
- High retaliation significantly loosens the conditions for conditional cooperators to resist invasion by unconditional defectors.
- "Niceness," "optimism," and "generosity" do not impact this stability condition.
- These three traits can be uniformly represented by a single "cooperative" parameter.
- When retaliation is sufficiently high, natural selection favors more "cooperative" strategies.
Conclusions:
- Retaliation is the primary driver of stability for conditional cooperators against defectors.
- A unified "cooperative" parameter effectively models niceness, optimism, and generosity.
- Evolutionary dynamics favor increased cooperation under strong retaliatory conditions, even with potential behavioral errors.
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