Prosocial Orientation Alters Network Dynamics and Fosters Cooperation

Abstract Dynamic networks have been shown to increase cooperation, but prior findings are compatible with two different mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation. It may be that dynamic networks promote cooperation even in networks composed entirely of egoists, who strategically cooperate to attra...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: David Melamed, Brent Simpson, Ashley Harrell
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/31fbe75c97234c7cbd2b2e7e46b6fff9
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Abstract Dynamic networks have been shown to increase cooperation, but prior findings are compatible with two different mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation. It may be that dynamic networks promote cooperation even in networks composed entirely of egoists, who strategically cooperate to attract and maintain profitable interaction partners. Alternatively, drawing on recent insights into heterogeneous social preferences, we expect that dynamic networks will increase cooperation only when nodes are occupied by persons with more prosocial preferences, who tend to attract and keep more cooperative partners relative to egoists. Our experiment used a standard procedure to classify participants a priori as egoistic or prosocial and then embedded them in homogeneous networks of all prosocials or all egoists, or in heterogeneous networks (50/50). Participants then interacted in repeated prisoner's dilemma games with alters in both static and dynamic networks. In both heterogeneous and homogeneous networks, we find dynamic networks only promote cooperation among prosocials. Resulting from their greater cooperation, prosocials’ relations are more stable, yielding substantially higher fitness compared to egoists in both heterogeneous and homogeneous dynamic networks. Our results suggest that a key to the evolution and stability of cooperation is the ability of those with prosocial preferences to alter their networks.