Computational Model Library

Evolution of Conditional Cooperation (1.1.0)

Human societies are unique in the level of cooperation among non-kin. Evolutionary models explaining this behavior typically assume pure strategies of cooperation and defection. Behavioral experiments, however, demonstrate that humans are typically conditional co-operators who have other-regarding preferences. Building on existing models on the evolution of cooperation and costly punishment, we use a utilitarian formulation of agent decision making to explore conditions that support the emergence of cooperative behavior. Our results indicate that cooperation levels are significantly lower for larger groups in contrast to the original pure strategy model. Here, defection behavior not only diminishes the public good, but also affects the expectations of group members leading conditional co-operators to change their strategies. Hence defection has a more damaging effect when decisions are based on expectations and not only pure strategies.

Release Notes

Associated Publications

M.A. Janssen, M. Manning, and O. Udiani (2014) The effect social preferences on the evolution of cooperation in public good games, Advances in Complex Systems 17(3/4): 1450015, DOI: 10.1142/S0219525914500155

This release is out-of-date. The latest version is 1.2.0

Evolution of Conditional Cooperation 1.1.0

Human societies are unique in the level of cooperation among non-kin. Evolutionary models explaining this behavior typically assume pure strategies of cooperation and defection. Behavioral experiments, however, demonstrate that humans are typically conditional co-operators who have other-regarding preferences. Building on existing models on the evolution of cooperation and costly punishment, we use a utilitarian formulation of agent decision making to explore conditions that support the emergence of cooperative behavior. Our results indicate that cooperation levels are significantly lower for larger groups in contrast to the original pure strategy model. Here, defection behavior not only diminishes the public good, but also affects the expectations of group members leading conditional co-operators to change their strategies. Hence defection has a more damaging effect when decisions are based on expectations and not only pure strategies.

Version Submitter First published Last modified Status
1.2.0 Marco Janssen Fri May 13 22:07:23 2022 Fri May 13 22:07:23 2022 Published
1.1.0 Marco Janssen Fri Dec 6 05:35:19 2013 Tue Feb 20 00:05:36 2018 Published
1.0.0 Marco Janssen Thu Aug 1 04:03:07 2013 Tue Feb 20 12:07:44 2018 Published

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