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Speculative defectors as unexpected insulators of super cooperators in structured populations

Zehua Si, Zhixue He, Chen Shen and Jun Tanimoto

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2023, vol. 170, issue C

Abstract: In this work, we extend the spatial prisoner’s dilemma game by introducing three competing strategies: unconditional cooperators (C); super cooperators (SC); and speculative defectors (SD). Unconditional cooperators cooperate with their opponent no matter what the opponent does. In contrast, SC first cooperate with their opponent, then reward or punish them based on whether the opponent cooperated or defected. SD cooperate with SC based on certain prior information level, but otherwise defect as default. We investigated the evolutionary dynamics of the extended prisoner’s dilemma game in structured populations. Through extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we showed that increasing the information level q generally facilitates the evolution of SC, but destroys them if the cost of SC is high. Counterintuitively, SD who cooperate with SC can form an active layer around them, which eliminates the free riding chance on SC for unconditional cooperators. Our results indicate that SD may not always impede cooperators.

Keywords: Evolutionary game theory; Super cooperators; Speculative defectors; Information level (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:170:y:2023:i:c:s0960077923002928

DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2023.113391

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