Evolution of Cooperation and Coordination in a Dynamically Networked Society

TL;DR

This paper models the co-evolution of strategies and social networks in society using game theory, showing that cooperation can emerge through self-organized network dynamics in complex social dilemmas.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamic network model where agents adapt their connections and strategies, demonstrating the emergence of cooperation and stable clusters in social dilemmas.

Findings

Cooperation emerges through network self-organization.

Agents form dense, stable clusters based on strategies.

Cooperation persists even in Prisoner's Dilemma scenarios.

Abstract

Situations of conflict giving rise to social dilemmas are widespread in society and game theory is one major way in which they can be investigated. Starting from the observation that individuals in society interact through networks of acquaintances, we model the co-evolution of the agents' strategies and of the social network itself using two prototypical games, the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Stag Hunt. Allowing agents to dismiss ties and establish new ones, we find that cooperation and coordination can be achieved through the self-organization of the social network, a result that is non-trivial, especially in the Prisoner's Dilemma case. The evolution and stability of cooperation implies the condensation of agents exploiting particular game strategies into strong and stable clusters which are more densely connected, even in the more difficult case of the Prisoner's Dilemma.