The effects of reputation on inequality in network cooperation games

Tsvetkova, Milena

doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0299

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Both cooperation 1 – 5 and resource inequality 6 , 7 are universal but variable across human societies. Although several studies have suggested that variation in material wealth inequality and cooperation may be linked 2 , 8 – 10 , we currently know little about how inequality in material wealth or endowments impacts cooperation 8 or how cooperation, in turn, influences inequalities 11 . We study the bidirectional effects of cooperation and inequality in dynamic networks, where ties between alters represent opportunities to cooperate 8 , 12 – 14 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality and cooperation in social networks

Melamed

Simpson

Montgomery

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Social networks are fundamental to the broad scale cooperation observed in human populations. But by structuring the flow of benefits from cooperation, networks also create and sustain macro-level inequalities. Here we ask how two aspects of inequality shape the evolution of cooperation in dynamic social networks. Results from a crowdsourced experiment (N = 1080) show that inequality alters the distribution of cooperation within networks such that participants engage in more costly cooperation with their wealthier partners in order to maintain more valuable connections to them. Inequality also influences network dynamics, increasing the tendency for participants to seek wealthier partners, resulting in structural network change. These processes aggregate to alter network structures and produce greater system-level inequality. The findings thus shed critical light on how networks serve as both boon and barrier to macro-level human flourishing.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality and cooperation in social networks

Melamed

Simpson

Montgomery

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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“…For cooperation to persist, cooperators, on average, must be better-off than non-cooperators. Tsvetkova [122] investigates how public and objective reputational information affects payoff inequality in repeated social dilemma interactions in large groups with the use of an agent-based model with simple decision heuristics and varying partner matching rules. She demonstrates that reputational information does not necessarily increase inequality in strategically updated networks, and actually decreases it in randomly rewired networks.…”

Section: This Issue's Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling

Számadó¹,

Balliet

Giardini

et al. 2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Large-scale non-kin cooperation is a unique ingredient of human success. This type of cooperation is challenging to explain in a world of self-interested individuals. There is overwhelming empirical evidence from different disciplines that reputation and gossip promote cooperation in humans in different contexts. Despite decades of research, important details of reputation systems are still unclear. Our goal with this theme issue is to promote an interdisciplinary approach that allows us to explore and understand the evolution and maintenance of reputation systems with a special emphasis on gossip and honest signalling. The theme issue is organized around four main questions: What are the necessary conditions for reputation-based systems? What is the content and context of reputation systems? How can reputations promote cooperation? And, what is the role of gossip in maintaining reputation systems and thus cooperation? This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.

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“…Our focus has been less on the stable set of strategies that may be employed, and more on their consequences (cf. [12,63,84]). We hope that this emphasis on the structural outcomes of individuals' strategic decisions will prompt more exploration in the evolutionary sciences.…”

Section: Conclusion: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

When does reputation lie? Dynamic feedbacks between costly signals, social capital and social prominence

Dumas

Barker

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Performing a dramatic act of religious devotion, creating an art exhibit, or releasing a new product are all examples of public acts that signal quality and contribute to building a reputation. Signalling theory predicts that these public displays can reliably reveal quality. However, data from ethnographic work in South India suggests that more prominent individuals gain more from reputation-building religious acts than more marginalized individuals. To understand this phenomenon, we extend signalling theory to include variation in people’s social prominence or social capital, first with an analytical model and then with an agent-based model. We consider two ways in which social prominence/capital may alter signalling: (i) it impacts observers’ priors, and (ii) it alters the signallers’ pay-offs. These two mechanisms can result in both a ‘reputational shield,’ where low quality individuals are able to ‘pass’ as high quality thanks to their greater social prominence/capital, and a ‘reputational poverty trap,’ where high quality individuals are unable to improve their standing owing to a lack of social prominence/capital. These findings bridge the signalling theory tradition prominent in behavioural ecology, anthropology and economics with the work on status hierarchies in sociology, and shed light on the complex ways in which individuals make inferences about others. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.

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The effects of reputation on inequality in network cooperation games

Cited by 7 publications

References 38 publications

Inequality and cooperation in social networks

Inequality and cooperation in social networks

The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling

When does reputation lie? Dynamic feedbacks between costly signals, social capital and social prominence

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