Abstract
Understanding the emergence of cooperation is a central issue in evolutionary game theory. The hardest setup for the attainment of cooperation in a population of individuals is the Public Goods game in which cooperative agents generate a common good at their own expenses, while defectors "free-ride" this good. Eventually this causes the exhaustion of the good, a situation which is bad for everybody. Previous results have shown that introducing reputation, allowing for volunteer participation, punishing defectors, rewarding cooperators or structuring agents, can enhance cooperation. Here we present a model which shows how the introduction of rare, malicious agents - that we term jokers - performing just destructive actions on the other agents induce bursts of cooperation. The appearance of jokers promotes a rock-paper-scissors dynamics, where jokers outbeat defectors and cooperators outperform jokers, which are subsequently invaded by defectors. Thus, paradoxically, the existence of destructive agents acting indiscriminately promotes cooperation. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 113-119 |
Journal | Journal of Theoretical Biology |
Volume | 279 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 21 Jun 2011 |
Keywords
- Cooperation
- Cycles
- Destructive agents
- Public goods