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Games
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The Evolution of Cooperation in Game Theory and Social Simulation
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The Evolution of Cooperation in Game Theory and Social Simulation

A special issue of Games (ISSN 2073-4336).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2019) | Viewed by 30937

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Satoshi Uchida

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Guest Editor
Research Center for Ethi-Culture Studies, RINRI Institute
Interests: Theoretical Ecology; Evolutionary Game Theory; Social Norm and Cooperation; Theoretical Ethics
Prof. Hitoshi Yamamoto

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Business Administration, Rissho University
Interests: Social Simulation; Evolution of Cooperation; Social Informatics; Agent-Based Modeling; Social Media
Prof. Dr. Isamu Okada

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Business Administration, Soka University, Tangi 1-236, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-8577, Japan
Interests: social dilemmas; evolution of cooperation; evolutionary game theory; indirect reciprocity; agent-based simulations; computational social science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Although cooperation is ubiquitous in the real world, it poses conundrums to game theoretical research. Workers in a company build a project team to perform a collective activity with other members. Social media users often provide beneficial information to the unspecified majority. Clearly, cooperative behaviors are useful to make real societies effective and smooth. On the other hand, the simplest model of cooperation in game theory predicts that, since cooperative behaviors incur costs to cooperators and free-riding is a better option, cooperation should not have emerged among rational people. Thus, there is a gap between what we observe in reality and what theory predicts. To fill this gap is an indispensable task to gain insights into real societies. Why do people cooperate? How can cooperation be promoted in real societies? Recently, theoreticians in a variety of fields such as economics, mathematics, and physics have been tackling these fundamental and practically important issues using tools developed in each discipline. Therefore, in this Special Issue, we collect papers that contribute to solving the conundrums of cooperation, using a wide range of tools including game theory, evolutionary dynamics, and social simulation methodologies.

Prof. Satoshi Uchida
Prof. Hitoshi Yamamoto
Prof. Isamu Okada
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Games is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Evolution of cooperation 
  • Game theory 
  • Evolutionary dynamics 
  • Social simulation 
  • Agent-based simulation 
  • Social dilemma

Published Papers (4 papers)

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13 pages, 1395 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Cooperation with Peer Punishment under Prospect Theory
by Satoshi Uchida, Hitoshi Yamamoto, Isamu Okada and Tatsuya Sasaki
Games 2019, 10(1), 11; https://doi.org/10.3390/g10010011 - 21 Feb 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 8333
Abstract
Social dilemmas are among the most puzzling issues in the biological and social sciences. Extensive theoretical efforts have been made in various realms such as economics, biology, mathematics, and even physics to figure out solution mechanisms to the dilemma in recent decades. Although [...] Read more.
Social dilemmas are among the most puzzling issues in the biological and social sciences. Extensive theoretical efforts have been made in various realms such as economics, biology, mathematics, and even physics to figure out solution mechanisms to the dilemma in recent decades. Although punishment is thought to be a key mechanism, evolutionary game theory has revealed that the simplest form of punishment called peer punishment is useless to solve the dilemma, since peer punishment itself is costly. In the literature, more complex types of punishment, such as pool punishment or institutional punishment, have been exploited as effective mechanisms. So far, mechanisms that enable peer punishment to function as a solution to the social dilemma remain unclear. In this paper, we propose a theoretical way for peer punishment to work as a solution mechanism for the dilemma by incorporating prospect theory into evolutionary game theory. Prospect theory models human beings as agents that estimate small probabilities and loss of profit as greater than they actually are; thus, those agents feel that punishments are more frequent and harsher than they really are. We show that this kind of cognitive distortion makes players decide to cooperate to avoid being punished and that the cooperative state achieved by this mechanism is globally stable as well as evolutionarily stable in a wide range of parameter values. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Evolution of Cooperation in Game Theory and Social Simulation)
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15 pages, 510 KiB  
Article
Linkage Based on the Kandori Norm Successfully Sustains Cooperation in Social Dilemmas
by Misato Inaba and Nobuyuki Takahashi
Games 2019, 10(1), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/g10010010 - 21 Feb 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 6808
Abstract
Since social dilemmas among n-persons are often embedded in other types of social exchanges, the exclusion of defectors in social dilemmas from other exchanges functions as a costless selective incentive. Recently, such “linkage” has been considered as a promising solution to resolve the [...] Read more.
Since social dilemmas among n-persons are often embedded in other types of social exchanges, the exclusion of defectors in social dilemmas from other exchanges functions as a costless selective incentive. Recently, such “linkage” has been considered as a promising solution to resolve the social dilemma problem. However, previous research showed that cooperation sustained by linkage is fragile when subjective perception errors exist. The purpose of this study is to find linkage strategies that are robust against subjective perception errors. Based on the strategies presented in previous studies on indirect reciprocity, we devised several linkage strategies and examined their evolutionary stability by agent-based simulation. The simulation results showed that the linkage strategy based on kandori was evolutionarily stable even when perception errors existed. Our study provides substantial support for the argument that linkage is a plausible solution to the social dilemma problem. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Evolution of Cooperation in Game Theory and Social Simulation)
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21 pages, 327 KiB  
Article
Categorization and Cooperation across Games
by Marco LiCalzi and Roland Mühlenbernd
Games 2019, 10(1), 5; https://doi.org/10.3390/g10010005 - 14 Jan 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7873
Abstract
We study a model where agents face a continuum of two-player games and categorize them into a finite number of situations to make sense of their complex environment. Agents need not share the same categorization. Each agent can cooperate or defect, conditional on [...] Read more.
We study a model where agents face a continuum of two-player games and categorize them into a finite number of situations to make sense of their complex environment. Agents need not share the same categorization. Each agent can cooperate or defect, conditional on the perceived category. The games are fully ordered by the strength of the temptation to defect and break joint cooperation. In equilibrium agents share the same categorization, but achieve less cooperation than if they could perfectly discriminate games. All the equilibria are evolutionarily stable, but stochastic stability selects against cooperation. We model agents’ learning when they imitate successful players over similar games, but lack any information about the opponents’ categorizations. We show that imitation conditional on reaching an intermediate aspiration level leads to a shared categorization that achieves higher cooperation than under perfect discrimination. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Evolution of Cooperation in Game Theory and Social Simulation)
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24 pages, 1917 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Groupwise Cooperation: Generosity, Paradoxical Behavior, and Non-Linear Payoff Functions
by Shun Kurokawa, Joe Yuichiro Wakano and Yasuo Ihara
Games 2018, 9(4), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/g9040100 - 10 Dec 2018
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 7096
Abstract
Evolution of cooperation by reciprocity has been studied using two-player and n-player repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. An interesting feature specific to the n-player case is that players can vary in generosity, or how many defections they tolerate in a given round [...] Read more.
Evolution of cooperation by reciprocity has been studied using two-player and n-player repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. An interesting feature specific to the n-player case is that players can vary in generosity, or how many defections they tolerate in a given round of a repeated game. Reciprocators are quicker to detect defectors to withdraw further cooperation when less generous, and better at maintaining a long-term cooperation in the presence of rare defectors when more generous. A previous analysis on a stochastic evolutionary model of the n-player repeated prisoner’s dilemma has shown that the fixation probability of a single reciprocator in a population of defectors can be maximized for a moderate level of generosity. However, the analysis is limited in that it considers only tit-for-tat-type reciprocators within the conventional linear payoff assumption. Here we extend the previous study by removing these limitations and show that, if the games are repeated sufficiently many times, considering non-tit-for-tat type strategies does not alter the previous results, while the introduction of non-linear payoffs sometimes does. In particular, under certain conditions, the fixation probability is maximized for a “paradoxical” strategy, which cooperates in the presence of fewer cooperating opponents than in other situations in which it defects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Evolution of Cooperation in Game Theory and Social Simulation)
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