Conjoining uncooperative societies facilitates evolution of cooperation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that connecting segregated groups in social networks can significantly promote cooperation, reducing the threshold needed for cooperation to emerge and suggesting global connectivity can foster collective cooperation.

Contribution

It introduces the concept that conjoining uncooperative societies enhances cooperation, supported by analysis on various network types including empirical data.

Findings

Connecting groups lowers the benefit-to-cost ratio needed for cooperation.

Inter-group ties facilitate the emergence of cooperation in social networks.

Global connectivity, if managed properly, can promote cooperation worldwide.

Abstract

Social structure affects the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. Here we study the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation in fragmented societies, and show that conjoining segregated cooperation-inhibiting groups, if done properly, rescues the fate of collective cooperation. We highlight the essential role of inter-group ties, that sew the patches of the social network together and facilitate cooperation. We point out several examples of this phenomenon in actual settings. We explore random and non-random graphs, as well as empirical networks. In many cases we find a marked reduction of the critical benefit-to-cost ratio needed for sustaining cooperation. Our finding gives hope that the increasing worldwide connectivity, if managed properly, can promote global cooperation.