Cheater-altruist synergy in immunopathogenic ecological public goods games

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.1101/182162 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Bryce Morsky ◽

Dervis Can Vural

Keyword(s):

Immune System ◽

Public Goods ◽

Free Riding ◽

Average Growth ◽

Public Goods Games ◽

Cheating Behavior ◽

Long Run ◽

Population Dynamics Models ◽

The Cost ◽

Dynamics Models

AbstractMuch research has focused on the deleterious effects of free-riding in public goods games, and a variety of mechanisms that suppresses cheating behavior. Here we argue that under certain conditions cheating behavior can be beneficial to the population. In a public goods game, cheaters do not pay for the cost of the public goods, yet they receive the benefit. Although this free-riding harms the entire population in the long run, the success of cheaters may aid the population when there is a common enemy that antagonizes both cooperators and cheaters. Here we study models in which an immune system antagonizes a cooperating pathogen. We investigate three population dynamics models, and determine under what conditions the presence of cheaters help defeat the immune system. The mechanism of action is that a polymorphism of cheaters and altruists optimizes the average growth rate. Our results give support for a possible synergy between cooperators and cheaters in ecological public goods games.

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Cooperation Enforcement and Collusion Resistance in Repeated Public Goods Games

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence ◽

10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33012085 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 33 ◽

pp. 2085-2092

Author(s):

Kai Li ◽

Dong Hao

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Social Dilemmas ◽

Multi Agent Systems ◽

Mutual Cooperation ◽

Collusion Resistance ◽

Free Rider Problem ◽

Simple Strategy ◽

Public Goods Games ◽

Long Run ◽

Multi Agent

Enforcing cooperation among substantial agents is one of the main objectives for multi-agent systems. However, due to the existence of inherent social dilemmas in many scenarios, the free-rider problem may arise during agents’ long-run interactions and things become even severer when self-interested agents work in collusion with each other to get extra benefits. It is commonly accepted that in such social dilemmas, there exists no simple strategy for an agent whereby she can simultaneously manipulate on the utility of each of her opponents and further promote mutual cooperation among all agents. Here, we show that such strategies do exist. Under the conventional repeated public goods game, we novelly identify them and find that, when confronted with such strategies, a single opponent can maximize his utility only via global cooperation and any colluding alliance cannot get the upper hand. Since a full cooperation is individually optimal for any single opponent, a stable cooperation among all players can be achieved. Moreover, we experimentally show that these strategies can still promote cooperation even when the opponents are both self-learning and collusive.

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Predicting Group Contribution Behaviour in a Public Goods Game from Face-to-Face Communication

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s19122786 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (12) ◽

pp. 2786 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ehsan Othman ◽

Frerk Saxen ◽

Dmitri Bershadskyy ◽

Philipp Werner ◽

Ayoub Al-Hamadi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Facial Expression ◽

Public Goods ◽

Facial Expressions ◽

Free Riding ◽

Random Forest Classification ◽

Face To Face ◽

Public Goods Games ◽

Facial Expression Analysis ◽

Forest Classification ◽

Theoretical Predictions

Experimental economic laboratories run many studies to test theoretical predictions with actual human behaviour, including public goods games. With this experiment, participants in a group have the option to invest money in a public account or to keep it. All the invested money is multiplied and then evenly distributed. This structure incentivizes free riding, resulting in contributions to the public goods declining over time. Face-to-face Communication (FFC) diminishes free riding and thus positively affects contribution behaviour, but the question of how has remained mostly unknown. In this paper, we investigate two communication channels, aiming to explain what promotes cooperation and discourages free riding. Firstly, the facial expressions of the group in the 3-minute FFC videos are automatically analysed to predict the group behaviour towards the end of the game. The proposed automatic facial expressions analysis approach uses a new group activity descriptor and utilises random forest classification. Secondly, the contents of FFC are investigated by categorising strategy-relevant topics and using meta-data. The results show that it is possible to predict whether the group will fully contribute to the end of the games based on facial expression data from three minutes of FFC, but deeper understanding requires a larger dataset. Facial expression analysis and content analysis found that FFC and talking until the very end had a significant, positive effect on the contributions.

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Constraining free riding in public goods games: designated solitary punishers can sustain human cooperation

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2008.1082 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 276 (1655) ◽

pp. 323-329 ◽

Cited By ~ 132

Author(s):

Rick O'Gorman ◽

Joseph Henrich ◽

Mark Van Vugt

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Large Scale ◽

Free Riding ◽

Single Individual ◽

Evolutionary Models ◽

Public Goods Games ◽

Specific Individual ◽

Large Groups ◽

Group Member ◽

Theoretical Proposal

Much of human cooperation remains an evolutionary riddle. Unlike other animals, people frequently cooperate with non-relatives in large groups. Evolutionary models of large-scale cooperation require not just incentives for cooperation, but also a credible disincentive for free riding. Various theoretical solutions have been proposed and experimentally explored, including reputation monitoring and diffuse punishment. Here, we empirically examine an alternative theoretical proposal: responsibility for punishment can be borne by one specific individual. This experiment shows that allowing a single individual to punish increases cooperation to the same level as allowing each group member to punish and results in greater group profits. These results suggest a potential key function of leadership in human groups and provides further evidence supporting that humans will readily and knowingly behave altruistically.

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Social dilemma in the external immune system of the red flour beetle? It is a matter of time

10.1101/128397 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Chaitanya S. Gokhale ◽

Arne Traulsen ◽

Gerrit Joop

Keyword(s):

Immune System ◽

Public Good ◽

Social Dilemma ◽

Red Flour Beetle ◽

Costs And Benefits ◽

Short Term ◽

Flour Beetle ◽

Experimental Systems ◽

Long Run ◽

The Cost

Sociobiology has revolutionized our understanding of interactions between organisms. Interactions may present a social dilemma where the interests of individual actors do not align with those of the group as a whole. Viewed through a sociobiological lens, nearly all interactions can be described in terms of their costs and benefits and a number of them then resemble a social dilemma. Numerous experimental systems, from bacteria to mammals, have been proposed as models for studying such dilemmas. Here we make use of the external immune system of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, to investigate how the experimental duration can affect whether the external secretion comprises a social dilemma or not. Some beetles (secretors) produce a costly quinone-rich external secretion that inhibits microbial growth in the surrounding environment, providing the secretors with direct personal benefits. However, since the antimicrobial secretion acts in the environment of the beetle it is potentially also advantageous to other beetles (non-secretors), who avoid the cost of producing the secretion. We test experimentally if the secretion qualifies as a public good. We find that in the short term, costly quinone secretion can be interpreted as a public good presenting a social dilemma where the presence of secretors increases the fitness of the group. In the long run, the benefit to the group of having more secretors vanishes and actually becomes detrimental to the group. Therefore, in such semi-natural environmental conditions, it turns out that qualifying a trait as social can be a matter of timing.

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Noncompliance With Safety Guidelines as a Free-Riding Strategy: An Evolutionary Game-Theoretic Approach to Cooperation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646892 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Jose C. Yong ◽

Bryan K. C. Choy

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Social Dynamics ◽

Evolutionary Game ◽

Free Riding ◽

Theoretic Approach ◽

Psychological Mechanisms ◽

Public Goods Games ◽

The Social ◽

Evolved Psychological Mechanisms ◽

Game Theoretic

Evolutionary game theory and public goods games offer an important framework to understand cooperation during pandemics. From this perspective, the COVID-19 situation can be conceptualized as a dilemma where people who neglect safety precautions act as free riders, because they get to enjoy the benefits of decreased health risk from others’ compliance with policies despite not contributing to or even undermining public safety themselves. At the same time, humans appear to carry a suite of evolved psychological mechanisms aimed at curbing free riding in order to ensure the continued provision of public goods, which can be leveraged to develop more effective measures to promote compliance with regulations. We also highlight factors beyond free riding that reduce compliance rates, such as the emergence of conspiratorial thinking, which seriously undermine the effectiveness of measures to suppress free riding. Together, the current paper outlines the social dynamics that occur in public goods dilemmas involving the spread of infectious disease, highlights the utility and limits of evolutionary game-theoretic approaches for COVID-19 management, and suggests novel directions based on emerging challenges to cooperation.

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Governance of Renewable Resources

Investors and Exploiters in Ecology and Economics ◽

10.7551/mitpress/9780262036122.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Thomas J. Valone ◽

Zoltán Barta ◽

Jan Börner ◽

Juan-Camilo Cardenas ◽

Luc-Alain Giraldeau ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Renewable Resources ◽

Prisoner's Dilemma ◽

Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽

Free Riding ◽

Free Riders ◽

The Cost

Renewable resources have the potential to be used sustainably but typically are not, often due to the existence of exploiters or free riders. This chapter analyzes free-riding behavior using the prisoner’s dilemma-based public goods model and the producer–scrounger model. Overuse of renewable resources is examined under four investor–exploiter scenarios, derived from modifications of the classic producer–scrounger model, and which vary in the degree of excludability of a discovered resource and in the cost of adopting each strategy. Two important factors reduce overuse: when a finder’s advantage can be created for investors, and when the costs of playing exploiter are increased relative to the costs of playing investor. Applying the investor–exploiter model to a fisheries scenario, discussion follows on how interventions designed to reduce overuse may be consistent with the existence of a finder’s advantage. A variety of existing interventions can be seen as increasing the costs of adopting the exploiter strategy.

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