Social Stratification and Cooperative Behavior in Spatial Prisoners' Dilemma Games

Abstract

It has been a long-lasting pursuit to promote cooperation, and this study aims to promote cooperation via the combination of social stratification and the spatial prisoners’ dilemma game. It is previously assumed that agents share the identical payoff matrix, but the stratification or diversity exists and exerts influences in real societies. Thus, two additional classes, elites and scoundrels, derive from and coexist with the existing class, commons. Three classes have different payoff matrices. We construct a model where agents play the prisoners’ dilemma game with neighbors. It indicates that stratification and temptation jointly influence cooperation. Temptation permanently reduces cooperation; elites play a positive role in promoting cooperation while scoundrels undermine it. As the temptation getting larger and larger, elites play a more and more positive and critical role while scoundrels’ negative effect becomes weaker and weaker, and it is more obvious when temptation goes beyond its threshold.

The evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game considering behavior interaction in a two-layered network

“…The evolutionary version of the PD game was first proposed in small-world networks in [18], after that the game model based on the mutual interactions or the group interactions has received extensive attention [19][20][21][22][23][24]. For instance, Chen et al proposed an aspiration-based coevolution of link weight, and explored how this set-up affects the evolution of cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game.…”

The prisoner's dilemma game model with reconnection-cost in adaptive network

“…Indeed, some factors play important roles in the evolution of cooperation, such as the preferential selection [16], the compassion [17] and the asymmetric cost [18], etc. The famous prisoner's dilemma game model describes the conflict among cooperation and defection [19][20][21][22][23]. This model in particular has become a standard model for studying cooperation and cheating, with cooperation often emerging as a robust outcome in evolving populations [24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

How the initial level of visibility and limited resource affect the evolution of cooperation

“…The famous prisoner’s dilemma game (PDG) model describes the conflict among cooperation and defection 19 20 21 22 23 . This model in particular has become a standard model for studying cooperation and cheating, with cooperation often emerging as a robust outcome in evolving populations 24 25 26 27 28 29 .…”