Self-regulation promotes cooperation in social networks

Cooperative behavior in real social dilemmas is often perceived as a phenomenon emerging from norms and punishment. To overcome this paradigm, we highlight the interplay between the influence of social networks on individuals, and the activation of spontaneous self-regulating mechanisms, which may lead them to behave cooperatively, while interacting with others and taking conflicting decisions over time. By extending Evolutionary game theory over networks, we prove that cooperation partially or fully emerges whether self-regulating mechanisms are sufficiently stronger than social pressure. Interestingly, even few cooperative individuals act as catalyzing agents for the cooperation of others, thus activating a recruiting mechanism, eventually driving the whole population to cooperate.

[1]  Matteo Marsili,et al.  Collaboration in social networks , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[2]  David G. Rand,et al.  The evolution of antisocial punishment in optional public goods games. , 2011, Nature communications.

[3]  Vaibhav Srivastava,et al.  Multiagent Decision-Making Dynamics Inspired by Honeybees , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems.

[4]  C. Hauert,et al.  The Evolutionary Origin of Cooperators and Defectors , 2004, Science.

[5]  Luis Mario Floría,et al.  Evolution of Cooperation in Multiplex Networks , 2012, Scientific Reports.

[6]  C. Cannings,et al.  Evolutionary Game Theory , 2010 .

[7]  Jürgen Kurths,et al.  Onymity promotes cooperation in social dilemma experiments , 2017, Science Advances.

[8]  Robert Boyd,et al.  Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation , 2003 .

[9]  Arend Hintze,et al.  Evolutionary game theory using agent-based methods. , 2014, Physics of life reviews.

[10]  C. Hauert,et al.  Via Freedom to Coercion: The Emergence of Costly Punishment , 2007, Science.

[11]  David G. Rand,et al.  Positive Interactions Promote Public Cooperation , 2009, Science.

[12]  M. Nowak.  Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation , 2006, Science.

[13]  E. Fehr,et al.  Altruistic punishment in humans , 2002, Nature.

[14]  Martin A. Nowak,et al.  The evolution of anti-social punishment in optional public goods games , 2019 .

[15]  Elizabeth Pennisi,et al.  Origins. On the origin of cooperation. , 2009, Science.

[16]  C. Hauert,et al.  Punishment and reputation in spatial public goods games , 2003, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[17]  M. Nowak,et al.  Evolutionary Dynamics of Biological Games , 2004, Science.

[18]  P. Schuster,et al.  Selfregulation of behaviour in animal societies , 1981, Biological Cybernetics.

[19]  David G. Rand,et al.  Human cooperation , 2013, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[20]  S. Kokubo,et al.  Universal scaling for the dilemma strength in evolutionary games. , 2015, Physics of life reviews.

[21]  Martin A. Nowak,et al.  Evolutionary dynamics on any population structure , 2016, Nature.

[22]  H. Ohtsuki,et al.  The replicator equation on graphs. , 2006, Journal of theoretical biology.

[23]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  Social norms and human cooperation , 2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[24]  Dario Madeo,et al.  Game Interactions and Dynamics on Networked Populations , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

[25]  G. Iacobelli,et al.  Lumping evolutionary game dynamics on networks. , 2016, Journal of theoretical biology.

[26]  R. Boyd,et al.  Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life , 2006 .

[27]  C. Hauert,et al.  Synergy and discounting of cooperation in social dilemmas. , 2006, Journal of theoretical biology.

[28]  Dirk Helbing,et al.  Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach , 2010, PloS one.

[29]  D. Lathrop.  Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering , 2015 .

[30]  F. C. Santos,et al.  Social diversity promotes the emergence of cooperation in public goods games , 2008, Nature.

[31]  David G. Rand,et al.  Evolutionary game dynamics of controlled and automatic decision-making. , 2015, Chaos.

[32]  H. Ohtsuki,et al.  A simple rule for the evolution of cooperation on graphs and social networks , 2006, Nature.

[33]  D. Fudenberg,et al.  Emergence of cooperation and evolutionary stability in finite populations , 2004, Nature.

[34]  F. C. Santos,et al.  Scale-free networks provide a unifying framework for the emergence of cooperation. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[35]  F. C. Santos,et al.  Evolutionary dynamics of social dilemmas in structured heterogeneous populations. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[36]  Leslie Ann Goldberg,et al.  Evolutionary Dynamics on Graphs: Invited Talk , 2015, FOGA.

[37]  Josef Hofbauer,et al.  Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics , 1998 .

[38]  Wenwu Yu,et al.  An Overview of Recent Progress in the Study of Distributed Multi-Agent Coordination , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

[39]  R. Boyd,et al.  Coordinated Punishment of Defectors Sustains Cooperation and Can Proliferate When Rare , 2010, Science.

[40]  Huijia Li,et al.  Punishment diminishes the benefits of network reciprocity in social dilemma experiments , 2017, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[41]  Gretchen Vogel,et al.  The Evolution of the Golden Rule , 2004, Science.