The interface of unidirectional rewards: Enhanced cooperation within interdependent networks

Yifan Liu, Yini Geng, Chunpeng Du, Kaipeng Hu, Chen Shen, Riccardo Pansini and Lei Shi

Applied Mathematics and Computation, 2021, vol. 402, issue C

Abstract: As a way to induce cooperation more effectively, positive incentives have emerged in social species forefront to negative incentives. To assess their effects in cooperation networks, we simulated a social scenario in which reward behaviors are dispensed unilaterally. To do so, we let evolve asymmetric rewards within two specular, interdependent networks, whose individuals in an upper layer have the right to reward corresponding players displaying, likewise, cooperative or defective behavior in the lower layer. With this setup, rewarded players in the lower layer can obtain a payoff equivalent to the amount of the cost of granting reward from the upper layer. Peculiarly, we find that cooperators survive for larger reward values regardless of how high the temptation to defect is. Notably, cooperators in the upper network thrive even if the temptation to defect is pretty high. By further analyzing the nature of social interactions, we find that defection is the winning strategy when rewards originated pro-socially, and that cooperation instead wins by invading the whole system when rewards originated anti-socially. These results are consistent when crosschecked to a theoretical analysis here purposely drawn up. Our work highlights the need of including complex network structures when analyzing asymmetric incentives in the evolution of cooperation, both in human and non-human species.

Keywords: Asymmetric reward; Cooperation; Interdependent networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0096300321001995
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:apmaco:v:402:y:2021:i:c:s0096300321001995

DOI: 10.1016/j.amc.2021.126151

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Mathematics and Computation is currently edited by Theodore Simos

More articles in Applied Mathematics and Computation from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().