Success-driven distribution of public goods promotes cooperation but preserves defection

TL;DR

This paper models how success-driven distribution of public goods fosters cooperation in structured populations, but also allows persistent defectors, highlighting the complex balance between collective benefit and individual persistence.

Contribution

It introduces a game theoretical model where public goods distribution depends on individual reproductive success, revealing how cooperation is promoted yet defectors can persist.

Findings

Cooperation is promoted regardless of interaction uncertainty.

Complete dominance of cooperators is prevented by super-persistent defectors.

Success-driven mechanisms can both enhance cooperation and sustain maladaptive behavior.

Abstract

Established already in the Biblical times, the Matthew effect stands for the fact that in societies rich tend to get richer and the potent even more powerful. Here we investigate a game theoretical model describing the evolution of cooperation on structured populations where the distribution of public goods is driven by the reproductive success of individuals. Phase diagrams reveal that cooperation is promoted irrespective of the uncertainty by strategy adoptions and the type of interaction graph, yet the complete dominance of cooperators is elusive due to the spontaneous emergence of super-persistent defectors that owe their survival to extremely rare microscopic patterns. This indicates that success-driven mechanisms are crucial for effectively harvesting benefits from collective actions, but that they may also account for the observed persistence of maladaptive behavior.