How to keep punishment to maintain cooperation: Introducing social vaccine

Hitoshi Yamamoto and Isamu Okada

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2016, vol. 443, issue C, 526-536

Abstract: Although there is much support for the punishment system as a sophisticated approach to resolving social dilemmas, more than a few researchers have also pointed out the limitations of such an approach. Second-order free riding is a serious issue facing the punishment system. Various pioneering works have suggested that an anti-social behavior or noise stemming from a mutation may, surprisingly, be helpful for avoiding second-order freeloaders. In this work, we show through mathematical analysis and an agent-based simulation of a model extending the meta-norms game that the coercive introduction of a small number of non-cooperators can maintain a cooperative regime robustly. This paradoxical idea was inspired by the effect of a vaccine, which is a weakened pathogen injected into a human body to create antibodies and ward off infection by that pathogen. Our expectation is that the coercive introduction of a few defectors, i.e., a social vaccine, will help maintain a highly cooperative regime because it will ensure that the punishment system works.

Keywords: Evolutionary game theory; Social dilemma; Free-rider problem; Agent based simulation; Social vaccine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:443:y:2016:i:c:p:526-536

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2015.08.053

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