Imitation and Cooperation in Different Helping Games

Giangiacomo Bravo ()
Additional contact information
Giangiacomo Bravo: http://fausto.eco.unibs.it/~gbravo/

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2007, vol. 11

Abstract: The relation between imitation and cooperation in evolutionary settings presents complex aspects. From one hand, in any environment where egoists are favored over cooperators by selection processes, imitation should lead to a further spreading of the former ones due to the combined processes of individual selection and replication of successful behaviors. On the other hand, if cooperators succeed in forming clusters of mutual helping individuals, imitation may have a positive effect on cooperation by further reproducing this locally dominant behavior. This paper explores the relationship between imitation and cooperation by mean of a simulation model based on two different Helping games. Our model shows that different imitation mechanisms can favor the spreading of cooperation under a wide range of conditions. Moreover, the interplay of imitation and other factors — e.g. the possibility of performing “conditional associations” strategies — can further foster the success of cooperative agents.

Keywords: Imitation; Evolution of Cooperation; Helping Game; Indirect Reciprocity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007 Written 2007-01-31

Downloads: (external link)
http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/11/1/8/8.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation from Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Series data maintained by ().