Randomness and Arbitrary Coordination in the Reactive Ultimatum Game

TL;DR

This paper investigates a reactive version of the ultimatum game where acceptance depends on offers, analyzing mean field and networked populations to understand how fairness and cooperation emerge through evolutionary dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces and analyzes a reactive ultimatum game model with acceptance probability depending on offers, exploring convergence to fairness in mean field and networked populations.

Findings

Reactive acceptance influences convergence to fair splits.

Network structure affects bargaining outcomes.

Polices impact population cooperation and fairness.

Abstract

Darwin's theory of evolution - as introduced in game theory by Maynard Smith - is not the only important evolutionary aspect in a evolutionary dynamics, since complex interdependencies, competition, and growth should be modeled by, for example, reactive aspects. In the ultimatum game the reciprocity and the fifty-fifty partition seems to be a deviation from rational behavior of the players under the light of the Nash equilibrium concept.Such equilibrium emerges, for example, from the punishment of the responder who generally tends to refuse unfair proposals. In the iterated version of the game, the proposers are able to improve their proposals by adding a value thus making fairer proposals. Such evolutionary aspects are not properly Darwinian-motivated, but they are endowed with a fundamental aspect: they reflect their actions according to value of the offers. Recently, a reactive version of the ultimatum game where acceptance occurs with fixed probability was proposed. In this paper, we aim at exploring this reactive version of the ultimatum game where the acceptance by players depends on the offer. In order to do so, we analyze two situations: (i) mean field and (ii) we consider players inserted within the networks with arbitrary coordination. We then show that the reactive aspect, here studied, thus far not analyzed in the evolutionary game theory literature can unveil an essential feature for the convergence to fifty-fifty split. Moreover we also analyze populations under four different polices ranging from a highly conservative to a moderate one, with respect to decision in changing the proposal based on acceptations. We show that the idea of gaining less more times added to the reciprocity of the players is highly relevant to the "healthy" societies population bargaining concept.