Power asymmetry destabilizes reciprocal cooperation in social dilemmas

IF 1.9 4区数学 Q2 BIOLOGY

Journal of Theoretical Biology Pub Date : 2025-04-06 DOI:10.1016/j.jtbi.2025.112106

Marco Colnaghi , Fernando P. Santos , Paul A.M. Van Lange , Daniel Balliet

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Direct reciprocity has been long identified as a mechanism to support the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. While most research on reciprocal cooperation has focused on symmetrical interactions, real world interactions often involve differences in power. Verbal theories have either claimed that power differences enhance or destabilize cooperation, indicating the need for a comprehensive theoretical model of how power asymmetries affect direct reciprocity. Here, we investigate the relationship between power and cooperation in two frequently studied social dilemmas, the prisoner’s dilemma (PD) and the snowdrift game (SD). Combining evolutionary game theory and agent-based models, we demonstrate that power asymmetries are detrimental to the evolution of cooperation. Strategies that are contingent on power within an interaction provide a selective advantage in the iterated SD, but not in the iterated PD. In both games, the rate of cooperation declines as power asymmetry increases, indicating that a more egalitarian distribution of the benefits of cooperation is the prerequisite for direct reciprocity to evolve and be maintained.

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来源期刊

Journal of Theoretical Biology 生物-生物学

CiteScore

4.20

自引率

5.00%

发文量

218

审稿时长

51 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Theoretical Biology is the leading forum for theoretical perspectives that give insight into biological processes. It covers a very wide range of topics and is of interest to biologists in many areas of research, including: • Brain and Neuroscience • Cancer Growth and Treatment • Cell Biology • Developmental Biology • Ecology • Evolution • Immunology, • Infectious and non-infectious Diseases, • Mathematical, Computational, Biophysical and Statistical Modeling • Microbiology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry • Networks and Complex Systems • Physiology • Pharmacodynamics • Animal Behavior and Game Theory Acceptable papers are those that bear significant importance on the biology per se being presented, and not on the mathematical analysis. Papers that include some data or experimental material bearing on theory will be considered, including those that contain comparative study, statistical data analysis, mathematical proof, computer simulations, experiments, field observations, or even philosophical arguments, which are all methods to support or reject theoretical ideas. However, there should be a concerted effort to make papers intelligible to biologists in the chosen field.