The Role of Opportunistic Punishment in the Evolution of Cooperation: An application of stochastic dynamics to public good game

TL;DR

This paper explores how opportunistic punishers, who may defect for personal gain, influence the evolution of cooperation in public good games by reversing the sequence of actions and punishments, revealing new pathways for cooperation to emerge.

Contribution

It introduces a modified public good game framework with a commitment-first sequence and demonstrates how opportunistic punishers can promote cooperation through stochastic dynamics.

Findings

Opportunistic punishers can facilitate cooperation where traditional punishers fail.

Reversing the game sequence alters punisher behavior and outcomes.

Selfishness of players can paradoxically promote cooperation.

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of opportunistic punisher who may act selfishly to free-ride cooperators or not to be exploited by defectors. To consider opportunistic punisher, we make a change to the sequence of one-shot public good game; instead of putting action choice first before punishment, the commitment of punishment is declared first before choosing the action of each participant. In this commitment-first setting, punisher may use information about her team, and may defect to increase her fitness in the team. Reversing sequence of public good game can induce different behavior of punisher, which cannot be considered in standard setting where punisher always chooses cooperation. Based on stochastic dynamics developed by evolutionary economists and biologists, we show that opportunistic punisher can make cooperation evolve where cooperative punisher fails. This alternative route for the evolution of cooperation relies paradoxically on the players' selfishness to profit from others' unconditional cooperation and defection.