Punish, but not too hard

how costly punishment spreads in the spatial public goods game

Dirk Helbing (Author), Attila Szolnoki (Author), Matjaž Perc (Author), György Szabó (Author)

Abstract

We study the evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods games where, besides the classical strategies of cooperation (C) and defection (D), we consider punishing cooperators (PC) or punishing defectors (PD) as an additional strategy. Using a minimalist modeling approach, our goal is to separately clarify and identify the consequences of the two punishing strategies. Since punishment is costly, punishing strategies lose the evolutionary competition in case of well-mixed interactions. When spatial interactions are taken into account, however, the outcome can be strikingly different, and cooperation may spread. The underlying mechanism depends on the character of the punishment strategy. In the case of cooperating punishers,increasing the fine results in a rising cooperation level. In contrast, in the presence of the PD strategy, the phase diagram exhibits a reentrant transition as the fine is increased. Accordingly, the level of cooperation shows a non-monotonous dependence on the fine. Remarkably, punishing strategies can spread in both cases, but based on largely different mechanisms, which depend on the cooperativeness (or not) of punishers.

Keywords

evolucijska teorija iger;družbena lastnina;prostorske igre;kazen;sociološki sistemi;morala;evolutionary game theory;public goods;spatial games;punishment;social systems;moral;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2010
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	UM FNM - Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
UDC:	53:33
COBISS:	14377750
ISSN:	1367-2630
Views:	1691
Downloads:	385
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	Slovenian
Secondary keywords:	evolucijska teorija iger;družbena lastnina;prostorske igre;kazen;sociološki sistemi;morala;
URN:	URN:SI:UM:
Type (COBISS):	Article
Pages:	str. 083005-1-083005-14
Volume:	ǂVol. ǂ12
Issue:	ǂiss. ǂ8
Chronology:	2010
DOI:	10.1088/1367-2630/12/8/083005
ID:	10846206