A unified framework of direct and indirect reciprocity

Laura Schmid (), Krishnendu Chatterjee, Christian Hilbe and Martin A. Nowak
Additional contact information
Laura Schmid: IST Austria
Krishnendu Chatterjee: IST Austria
Christian Hilbe: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
Martin A. Nowak: Harvard University

Nature Human Behaviour, 2021, vol. 5, issue 10, 1292-1302

Abstract: Abstract Direct and indirect reciprocity are key mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation. Direct reciprocity means that individuals use their own experience to decide whether to cooperate with another person. Indirect reciprocity means that they also consider the experiences of others. Although these two mechanisms are intertwined, they are typically studied in isolation. Here, we introduce a mathematical framework that allows us to explore both kinds of reciprocity simultaneously. We show that the well-known ‘generous tit-for-tat’ strategy of direct reciprocity has a natural analogue in indirect reciprocity, which we call ‘generous scoring’. Using an equilibrium analysis, we characterize under which conditions either of the two strategies can maintain cooperation. With simulations, we additionally explore which kind of reciprocity evolves when members of a population engage in social learning to adapt to their environment. Our results draw unexpected connections between direct and indirect reciprocity while highlighting important differences regarding their evolvability.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01114-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:5:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41562-021-01114-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01114-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().