Cooperation and coordination in heterogeneous populations

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary Game Theory
• Behavioral Economics
• Social Dilemmas

Background:

• Social dilemma research often assumes symmetric interactions, limiting understanding of cooperation under inequality.
• Asymmetry in endowments or productivities can significantly impact cooperation dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate cooperation in asymmetric coordination games.
• To compare theoretical predictions with human behavior in scenarios of inequality.
• To assess the explanatory power of evolutionary game theory models for observed cooperation patterns.

Main Methods:

• Designed a public goods game with a collective threshold for reward distribution.
• Introduced asymmetry by varying participants' endowments or productivities.
• Conducted a behavioral experiment with human participants to observe contribution strategies.
• Analyzed theoretical equilibrium solutions for asymmetric coordination games.

Main Results:

• Theoretical analysis predicted multiple equilibria, including equal, unequal, or zero contributions.
• Behavioral experiments revealed a human preference for equal proportional contributions.
• Observed cooperation patterns deviated from some theoretical predictions in asymmetric settings.

Conclusions:

• Human cooperation in asymmetric coordination games favors equal proportional contributions, irrespective of individual differences.
• Inequality has non-trivial effects on cooperation, which current evolutionary game theory models may not fully capture.
• Further refinement of game theory models is needed to account for observed human behavior in the face of inequality.