Heterogeneous aspirations promote cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game

Matjaž Perc (Author), Zhen Wang (Author)

Abstract

To be the fittest is central to proliferation in evolutionary games. Individuals thus adopt the strategies of better performing players in the hopeof successful reproduction. In structured populations the array of those that are eligible to act as strategy sources is bounded to the immediate neighbors of each individual. But which one of these strategy sources should potentially be copied? Previous research dealt with this question either by selecting the fittest or by selecting one player uniformly at random. Here we introduce a parameter that interpolates between these two extreme options. Setting equal to zero returns the random selection of the opponent, while positive favor the fitter players. In addition, we divide the population intotwo groups. Players from group select their opponents as dictated by the parameter , while players from group do so randomly irrespective of . We denote the fraction of players contained in groups and by and , respectively. The two parameters and allow us to analyze in detail how aspirations in the context of the prisoner's dilemma game influence the evolution of cooperation. We find that for sufficiently positive values of there exist a robust intermediate for which cooperation thrives best. The robustness of this observation is tested against different levels of uncertainty in the strategy adoption process and for different interaction networks. We also provide complete phase diagrams depicting the dependence of the impact of and for different values of , and contrast the validity of ourconclusions by means of an alternative model where individual aspiration levels are subject to evolution as well. Our study indicates that heterogeneity in aspirations may be key for the sustainability of cooperation in structured populations.

Keywords

evolucijska teorija iger;dilema zapornika;prostorske igre;zgledovanje;sociološki sistemi;fizika socioloških sistemov;evolutionary game theory;prisoner's dilemma;spatial games;aspirations;social systems;physics and society;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2010
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	UM FNM - Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
UDC:	530.16
COBISS:	14724886
ISSN:	1932-6203
Views:	921
Downloads:	335
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	Slovenian
Secondary keywords:	evolucijska teorija iger;dilema zapornika;prostorske igre;zgledovanje;sociološki sistemi;fizika socioloških sistemov;
URN:	URN:SI:UM:
Type (COBISS):	Scientific work
Pages:	str. e15117-1-e15117-8
Volume:	ǂVol. ǂ5
Issue:	ǂiss. ǂ12
Chronology:	2010
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0015117
ID:	10843420