On the role of hypocrisy in escaping the tragedy of the commons.

ABSTRACT: We study the emergence of cooperation in large spatial public goods games. Without employing severe social-pressure against "defectors", or alternatively, significantly rewarding "cooperators", theoretical models typically predict a system collapse in a way that is reminiscent of the "tragedy-of-the-commons" metaphor. Drawing on a dynamic network model, this paper demonstrates how cooperation can emerge when the social-pressure is mild. This is achieved with the aid of an additional behavior called "hypocrisy", which appears to be cooperative from the external observer's perspective but in fact hardly contributes to the social-welfare. Our model assumes that social-pressure is induced over both defectors and hypocritical players, though the extent of which may differ. Our main result indic

SUBMITTER: Korman A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8413299 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature