Success-Driven Distribution of Public Goods Promotes Cooperation but Preserves Defection

Established already in Biblical times, the Matthew effect refers to the fact that in societies the rich tend to get richer and the potent even more powerful. Here we investigate a game theoretical model describing the evolution of cooperation on structured populations where the distribution of public goods is driven by the reproductive success of individuals. Phase diagrams reveal that cooperation is promoted irrespective of the uncertainty by strategy adoptions and the type of interaction graph, yet the complete dominance of cooperators is elusive due to the spontaneous emergence of superpersistent defectors that owe their survival to extremely rare microscopic patterns. This indicates that success-driven mechanisms are crucial for effectively harvesting benefits from collective actions but that they may also account for the observed persistence of maladaptive behavior.

[1]  M. Kuperman,et al.  Social games in a social network. , 2000, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[2]  R. Merton.  The Matthew Effect in Science , 1968, Science.

[3]  Woo-Sung Jung,et al.  Quantitative and empirical demonstration of the Matthew effect in a study of career longevity , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[4]  S. Redner.  Citation statistics from 110 years of physical review , 2005, physics/0506056.

[5]  Long Wang,et al.  Partner selections in public goods games with constant group size. , 2009, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[6]  Long Wang,et al.  Effects of heterogeneous wealth distribution on public cooperation with collective risk. , 2010, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[7]  Arne Traulsen,et al.  Coevolution of strategy and structure in complex networks with dynamical linking. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[8]  A. Sanchez,et al.  Co-evolution of strategies and update rules in the prisoner's dilemma game on complex networks , 2010, 1007.3626.

[9]  Daniele Vilone,et al.  Evolutionary Games defined at the Network Mesoscale: The Public Goods game , 2010, Chaos.

[10]  Arne Traulsen,et al.  Social learning promotes institutions for governing the commons , 2010, Nature.

[11]  Albert,et al.  Emergence of scaling in random networks , 1999, Science.

[12]  Manfred Milinski,et al.  The Calculus of Selfishness , 2011 .

[13]  R. Rosenfeld.  Nature , 2009, Otolaryngology--head and neck surgery : official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

[14]  Víctor M Eguíluz,et al.  Coevolution of dynamical states and interactions in dynamic networks. , 2004, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

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

[16]  Ravi Kumar,et al.  Structure and evolution of online social networks , 2006, KDD '06.

[17]  Werner Horsthemke,et al.  Noise-induced transitions , 1984 .

[18]  Attila Szolnoki,et al.  Topology-independent impact of noise on cooperation in spatial public goods games. , 2009, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[19]  Leo Egghe,et al.  Generalized success-breeds-success principle leading to time-dependent informetric distributions , 1995 .

[20]  Adam Smith,et al.  The Wealth of Nations , 1999 .

[21]  Sungmin Lee,et al.  Emergent hierarchical structures in multiadaptive games. , 2010, Physical review letters.

[22]  R. Axelrod,et al.  Evolutionary Dynamics , 2004 .

[23]  C. Hauert,et al.  Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Cooperation in Public Goods Games , 2002, Science.

[24]  V. Eguíluz,et al.  Cooperation and the Emergence of Role Differentiation in the Dynamics of Social Networks1 , 2005, American Journal of Sociology.

[25]  Attila Szolnoki,et al.  Coevolutionary Games - A Mini Review , 2009, Biosyst..

[26]  D J PRICE,et al.  NETWORKS OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. , 1965, Science.

[27]  G. Szabó,et al.  Evolutionary games on graphs , 2006, cond-mat/0607344.

[28]  S. Bornholdt,et al.  Coevolutionary games on networks. , 2002, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[29]  J. Rogers.  Chaos , 1876 .

[30]  M. Nowak,et al.  Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring , 1998, Nature.

[31]  Peyraud Ap,et al.  Who is a D.A. , 1970 .

[32]  G. Hardin,et al.  The Tragedy of the Commons , 1968, Green Planet Blues.

[33]  Karl Sigmund,et al.  Punish or perish? Retaliation and collaboration among humans. , 2007, Trends in ecology & evolution.

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