Asymmetry within social groups: division of labour and intergroup competition.

ABSTRACT: Social animals vary in their ability to compete with group members over shared resources and also vary in their cooperative efforts to produce these resources. Competition among groups can promote within-group cooperation, but many existing models of intergroup cooperation do not explicitly account for observations that group members invest differentially in cooperation and that there are often within-group competitive or power asymmetries. We present a game theoretic model of intergroup competition that investigates how such asymmetries affect within-group cooperation. In this model, group members adopt one of two roles, with relative competitive efficiency and the number of individuals varying between roles. Players in each role make simultaneous, coevolving decisions. The model predicts

SUBMITTER: Barker JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4784174 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature