# Knowing the past improves cooperation in the future

## TL;DR

This paper presents a mathematical model demonstrating that incorporating past performance as a benchmark in evolutionary game theory significantly enhances long-term cooperation by preventing defector invasions.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel approach where past success benchmarks improve cooperation, showing that the specific method of past evaluation is of secondary importance.

## Key findings

- Using past benchmarks stabilizes cooperation against defectors.
- The specific form of past evaluation (weighted average or single payoff) is of secondary importance.
- Incorporating past information enhances long-term cooperative stability.

## Abstract

Cooperation is the cornerstone of human evolutionary success. Like no other species, we champion the sacrifice of personal benefits for the common good, and we work together to achieve what we are unable to achieve alone. Knowledge and information from past generations is thereby often instrumental in ensuring we keep cooperating rather than deteriorating to less productive ways of coexistence. Here we present a mathematical model based on evolutionary game theory that shows how using the past as the benchmark for evolutionary success, rather than just current performance, significantly improves cooperation in the future. Interestingly, the details of just how the past is taken into account play only second-order importance, whether it be a weighted average of past payoffs or just a single payoff value from the past. Cooperation is promoted because information from the past disables fast invasions of defectors, thus enhancing the long-term benefits of cooperative behavior.