IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pcbi00/1004779.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas on Complex Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Swami Iyer
  • Timothy Killingback

Abstract

Cooperation in social dilemmas is essential for the functioning of systems at multiple levels of complexity, from the simplest biological organisms to the most sophisticated human societies. Cooperation, although widespread, is fundamentally challenging to explain evolutionarily, since natural selection typically favors selfish behavior which is not socially optimal. Here we study the evolution of cooperation in three exemplars of key social dilemmas, representing the prisoner’s dilemma, hawk-dove and coordination classes of games, in structured populations defined by complex networks. Using individual-based simulations of the games on model and empirical networks, we give a detailed comparative study of the effects of the structural properties of a network, such as its average degree, variance in degree distribution, clustering coefficient, and assortativity coefficient, on the promotion of cooperative behavior in all three classes of games.Author Summary: Social dilemmas embody the tension between individual self-interest on the one hand and the public good on the other that underlie many of the greatest challenges facing human and animal societies, such as the maintenance of altruism and the responsible use of common resources. Understanding the mechanisms through which cooperative, socially optimal, behavior can be established in social dilemmas is a fundamental problem in evolutionary biology and in many areas of the social sciences. Here we study how cooperative behavior can emerge in three key social dilemmas—known as the donation game, snowdrift game and sculling game—when interactions between individuals form a network. We show that in all three social dilemmas significantly higher levels of cooperative behavior typically emerge in such a situation as compared to what would be the case in the absence of any network structure. In particular, we show that certain structural properties that are common in real-world social networks have a significant effect in increasing the level of cooperative behavior that is present in all three social dilemmas.

Suggested Citation

  • Swami Iyer & Timothy Killingback, 2016. "Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas on Complex Networks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-25, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1004779
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004779
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004779
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004779&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004779?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Szolnoki, Attila & Perc, Matjaž & Danku, Zsuzsa, 2008. "Towards effective payoffs in the prisoner’s dilemma game on scale-free networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(8), pages 2075-2082.
    2. Swami Iyer & Joshua Reyes & Timothy Killingback, 2014. "An Application of Evolutionary Game Theory to Social Dilemmas: The Traveler's Dilemma and the Minimum Effort Coordination Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-11, April.
    3. Erez Lieberman & Christoph Hauert & Martin A. Nowak, 2005. "Evolutionary dynamics on graphs," Nature, Nature, vol. 433(7023), pages 312-316, January.
    4. Young, H Peyton, 1993. "The Evolution of Conventions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 57-84, January.
    5. C.-L. Tang & W.-X. Wang & X. Wu & B.-H. Wang, 2006. "Effects of average degree on cooperation in networked evolutionary game," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 53(3), pages 411-415, October.
    6. C. P. Roca & J. A. Cuesta & A. Sánchez, 2009. "Promotion of cooperation on networks? The myopic best response case," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 71(4), pages 587-595, October.
    7. Christoph Hauert & Michael Doebeli, 2004. "Spatial structure often inhibits the evolution of cooperation in the snowdrift game," Nature, Nature, vol. 428(6983), pages 643-646, April.
    8. Kaniovski Yuri M. & Young H. Peyton, 1995. "Learning Dynamics in Games with Stochastic Perturbations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 330-363, November.
    9. Kandori, Michihiro & Mailath, George J & Rob, Rafael, 1993. "Learning, Mutation, and Long Run Equilibria in Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 29-56, January.
    10. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    11. Wu, Te & Fu, Feng & Dou, Puxuan & Wang, Long, 2014. "Social influence promotes cooperation in the public goods game," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 413(C), pages 86-93.
    12. D. S. Callaway & J. E. Hopcroft & J. M. Kleinberg & M. E. J. Newman & S. H. Strogatz, 2001. "Are Randomly Grown Graphs Really Random?," Working Papers 01-05-025, Santa Fe Institute.
    13. Hisashi Ohtsuki & Christoph Hauert & Erez Lieberman & Martin A. Nowak, 2006. "A simple rule for the evolution of cooperation on graphs and social networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7092), pages 502-505, May.
    14. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6685), pages 573-577, June.
    15. 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.
    16. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 2005. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7063), pages 1291-1298, October.
    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. Deng, Wenfeng & Huang, Keke & Yang, Chunhua & Zhu, Hongqiu & Yu, Zhaofei, 2018. "Promote of cooperation in networked multiagent system based on fitness control," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 339(C), pages 805-811.
    2. Płatkowski, Tadeusz, 2023. "Cooperation in two-player social dilemmas with other-regarding orientations," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. Bandyopadhyay, Abhirup & Kar, Samarjit, 2018. "Coevolution of cooperation and network structure in social dilemmas in evolutionary dynamic complex network," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 320(C), pages 710-730.
    4. Yu, Fengyuan & Wang, Jianwei & He, Jialu & Xu, Wenshu, 2023. "Friendship transmission and cooperation evolution in highly clustering interactions," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    5. Swami Iyer & Timothy Killingback, 2020. "Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas with Assortative Interactions," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-31, September.
    6. Marialisa Scatá & Barbara Attanasio & Aurelio La Corte, 2021. "Cognitive Profiling of Nodes in 6G through Multiplex Social Network and Evolutionary Collective Dynamics," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-17, May.
    7. Sarkar, Bijan, 2018. "Moran-evolution of cooperation: From well-mixed to heterogeneous complex networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 497(C), pages 319-334.
    8. Sakiyama, Tomoko, 2021. "A power law network in an evolutionary hawk–dove game," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    9. Ke, Jianhong & Li, Ping-Ping & Lin, Zhenquan, 2022. "Dissatisfaction-driven replicator dynamics of the evolutionary snowdrift game in structured populations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 587(C).
    10. Płatkowski, Tadeusz, 2022. "Cooperation in multi-person social dilemmas with other-regarding orientations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 599(C).
    11. Zhang, Xin-Jie & Tang, Yong & Xiong, Jason & Wang, Wei-Jia & Zhang, Yi-Cheng, 2020. "Ranking game on networks: The evolution of hierarchical society," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 540(C).
    12. Guangming Ren & Lan Liu & Mingku Feng & Yingji He, 2018. "Coevolution of public goods game and networks based on survival of the fittest," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-11, September.
    13. Hendrik Richter, 2020. "Evolution of Cooperation for Multiple Mutant Configurations on All Regular Graphs with N ≤ 14 Players," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, February.

    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. Swami Iyer & Timothy Killingback, 2020. "Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas with Assortative Interactions," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-31, September.
    2. Bandyopadhyay, Abhirup & Kar, Samarjit, 2018. "Coevolution of cooperation and network structure in social dilemmas in evolutionary dynamic complex network," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 320(C), pages 710-730.
    3. 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.
    4. Yao Meng & Sean P. Cornelius & Yang-Yu Liu & Aming Li, 2024. "Dynamics of collective cooperation under personalised strategy updates," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. Faqi Du & Feng Fu, 2011. "Partner Selection Shapes the Strategic and Topological Evolution of Cooperation," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 354-369, September.
    6. Xiang Wei & Peng Xu & Shuiting Du & Guanghui Yan & Huayan Pei, 2021. "Reputational preference-based payoff punishment promotes cooperation in spatial social dilemmas," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 94(10), pages 1-7, October.
    7. Wang, Jianwei & Xu, Wenshu & Yu, Fengyuan & He, Jialu & Chen, Wei & Dai, Wenhui, 2024. "Evolution of cooperation under corrupt institutions," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    8. Deng, Kuiying & Li, Zhuozheng & Kurokawa, Shun & Chu, Tianguang, 2012. "Rare but severe concerted punishment that favors cooperation," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 81(4), pages 284-291.
    9. Fabio Della Rossa & Fabio Dercole & Anna Di Meglio, 2020. "Direct Reciprocity and Model-Predictive Strategy Update Explain the Network Reciprocity Observed in Socioeconomic Networks," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-28, March.
    10. Flávio L Pinheiro & Jorge M Pacheco & Francisco C Santos, 2012. "From Local to Global Dilemmas in Social Networks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(2), pages 1-6, February.
    11. Jorge M Pacheco & Flávio L Pinheiro & Francisco C Santos, 2009. "Population Structure Induces a Symmetry Breaking Favoring the Emergence of Cooperation," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(12), pages 1-7, December.
    12. Xiaojie Chen & Alana Schick & Michael Doebeli & Alistair Blachford & Long Wang, 2012. "Reputation-Based Conditional Interaction Supports Cooperation in Well-Mixed Prisoner’s Dilemmas," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-7, May.
    13. Lv, Shaojie & Wang, Xianjia, 2020. "The impact of heterogeneous investments on the evolution of cooperation in public goods game with exclusion," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 372(C).
    14. Benjamin Allen & Christine Sample & Robert Jencks & James Withers & Patricia Steinhagen & Lori Brizuela & Joshua Kolodny & Darren Parke & Gabor Lippner & Yulia A Dementieva, 2020. "Transient amplifiers of selection and reducers of fixation for death-Birth updating on graphs," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, January.
    15. Dong, Yukun & Xu, Hedong & Fan, Suohai, 2019. "Memory-based stag hunt game on regular lattices," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 519(C), pages 247-255.
    16. Isamu Okada, 2020. "A Review of Theoretical Studies on Indirect Reciprocity," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, July.
    17. Liu, Xuesong & Pan, Qiuhui & He, Mingfeng & Liu, Aizhi, 2019. "Promotion of cooperation in evolutionary game dynamics under asymmetric information," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 521(C), pages 258-266.
    18. Qu, Xinglong & Zhou, Changli & Cao, Zhigang & Yang, Xiaoguang, 2016. "Conditional dissociation as a punishment mechanism in the evolution of cooperation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 449(C), pages 215-223.
    19. Egas, Martijn & Riedl, Arno, 2005. "The Economics of Altruistic Punishment and the Demise of Cooperation," IZA Discussion Papers 1646, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Klaus Jaffe & Roberto Cipriani, 2007. "Culture Outsmarts Nature in the Evolution of Cooperation," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 10(1), pages 1-7.

    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:plo:pcbi00:1004779. 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: ploscompbiol (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/ .

    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.