Effects of Evolution on the Emergence of Scale Free Networks

The evolution of cooperation in social networks, and the emergence of these networks using simple rules of attachment, have both been studied extensively although mostly in separation. In real-world scenarios, however, these two fields are typically intertwined, where individuals’ behavior affect the structural emergence of the network and vice versa. Although much progress has been made in understanding each of the aforementioned fields, many joint characteristics are still unrevealed. In this paper we propose the Simultaneous Emergence and Evolution (SEE) model, aiming at unifying the study of these two fields. The SEE model combines the continuous action prisoner’s dilemma (modeling the evolution of cooperation) with preferential attachment (used to model network emergence), enabling the simultaneous study of both structural emergence and behavioral evolution of social networks. A set of empirical experiments show that the SEE model is capable of generating realistic complex networks, while at the same time allowing for the study of the impact of initial conditions on the evolution of cooperation.

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