IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chsofr/v56y2013icp113-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evolutionary games with facilitators: When does selection favor cooperation?

Author

Listed:
  • Mobilia, Mauro

Abstract

We study the combined influence of selection and random fluctuations on the evolutionary dynamics of two-strategy (“cooperation” and “defection”) games in populations comprising cooperation facilitators. The latter are individuals that support cooperation by enhancing the reproductive potential of cooperators relative to the fitness of defectors. By computing the fixation probability of a single cooperator in finite and well-mixed populations that include a fixed number of facilitators, and by using mean field analysis, we determine when selection promotes cooperation in the important classes of prisoner’s dilemma, snowdrift and stag-hunt games. In particular, we identify the circumstances under which selection favors the replacement and invasion of defection by cooperation. Our findings, corroborated by stochastic simulations, show that the spread of cooperation can be promoted through various scenarios when the density of facilitators exceeds a critical value whose dependence on the population size and selection strength is analyzed. We also determine under which conditions cooperation is more likely to replace defection than vice versa.

Suggested Citation

  • Mobilia, Mauro, 2013. "Evolutionary games with facilitators: When does selection favor cooperation?," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 113-123.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:56:y:2013:i:c:p:113-123
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2013.07.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960077913001355
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chaos.2013.07.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin A. Nowak & Akira Sasaki & Christine Taylor & Drew Fudenberg, 2004. "Emergence of cooperation and evolutionary stability in finite populations," Nature, Nature, vol. 428(6983), pages 646-650, April.
    2. Blume Lawrence E., 1993. "The Statistical Mechanics of Strategic Interaction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 387-424, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, Bin-Quan & Wu, Zhi-Xi & Guan, Jian-Yue, 2022. "Critical thresholds of benefit distribution in an extended snowdrift game model," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marta C. Couto & Saptarshi Pal, 2023. "Introspection Dynamics in Asymmetric Multiplayer Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 1256-1285, December.
    2. Christian Hilbe & Moshe Hoffman & Martin A. Nowak, 2015. "Cooperate without Looking in a Non-Repeated Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-15, September.
    3. Floriana Gargiulo & José J Ramasco, 2012. "Influence of Opinion Dynamics on the Evolution of Games," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-7, November.
    4. Christian Hilbe & Martin A Nowak & Arne Traulsen, 2013. "Adaptive Dynamics of Extortion and Compliance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-9, November.
    5. Van Cleve, Jeremy, 2015. "Social evolution and genetic interactions in the short and long term," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 2-26.
    6. Flávio L Pinheiro & Vítor V Vasconcelos & Francisco C Santos & Jorge M Pacheco, 2014. "Evolution of All-or-None Strategies in Repeated Public Goods Dilemmas," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-5, November.
    7. Du, Faqi & Fu, Feng, 2013. "Quantifying the impact of noise on macroscopic organization of cooperation in spatial games," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 35-44.
    8. Michael Kosfeld, 2002. "Stochastic strategy adjustment in coordination games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 20(2), pages 321-339.
    9. Steven N. Durlauf, 1996. "Statistical Mechanics Approaches to Socioeconomic Behavior," NBER Technical Working Papers 0203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2007:i:19:p:1-8 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Takuya Sekiguchi, 2023. "Fixation Probabilities of Strategies for Trimatrix Games and Their Applications to Triadic Conflict," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 1005-1033, September.
    12. Zhang, Boyu & Hofbauer, Josef, 2016. "Quantal response methods for equilibrium selection in 2×2 coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 19-31.
    13. Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2020. "The Volunteer’s Dilemma in Finite Populations," CEPR Discussion Papers 15536, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Jun Honda, 2015. "Games with the Total Bandwagon Property," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp197, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    15. M. Kleshnina & K. Kaveh & K. Chatterjee, 2020. "The role of behavioural plasticity in finite vs infinite populations," Papers 2009.13160, arXiv.org.
    16. Venkatasubramanian, Venkat & Luo, Yu & Sethuraman, Jay, 2015. "How much inequality in income is fair? A microeconomic game theoretic perspective," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 435(C), pages 120-138.
    17. Martina Testori & Hedwig Eisenbarth & Rebecca B Hoyle, 2022. "Selfish risk-seeking can provide an evolutionary advantage in a conditional public goods game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-18, January.
    18. Huang, Keke & Liu, Yishun & Zhang, Yichi & Yang, Chunhua & Wang, Zhen, 2018. "Understanding cooperative behavior of agents with heterogeneous perceptions in dynamic networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 509(C), pages 234-240.
    19. Falk Armin & Kosfeld Michael, 2012. "It's all about Connections: Evidence on Network Formation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-36, September.
    20. Qinghu Liao & Wenwen Dong & Boxin Zhao, 2023. "A New Strategy to Solve “the Tragedy of the Commons” in Sustainable Grassland Ecological Compensation: Experience from Inner Mongolia, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-24, June.
    21. Chaitanya S. Gokhale & Joseph Bulbulia & Marcus Frean, 2022. "Collective narratives catalyse cooperation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:56:y:2013:i:c:p:113-123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thayer, Thomas R. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/chaos-solitons-and-fractals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.