Transition from Gaussian to Levy distributions of stochastic payoff variations in the spatial prisoner’s dilemma game

2007/02/02 by Matjaž Perc · 4 citations
Medicine · Social Sciences · #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models

paper · doi:10.1103/physreve.75.022101

openalex publication_date 2007/02/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/05

Abstract

We study the impact of stochastic payoff variations with different distributions on the evolution of cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game. We find that Gaussian-distributed payoff variations are most successful in promoting cooperation irrespective of the temptation to defect. In particular, the facilitative effect of noise on the evolution of cooperation decreases steadily as the frequency of rare events increases. Findings are explained via an analysis of local payoff ranking violations. The relevance of results for economics and sociology is discussed.

Citations

• Game theory and physics
• Stochastic Gain in Population Dynamics
• THE SPATIAL DILEMMAS OF EVOLUTION
• Social games in a social network
• Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Cooperation in Public Goods Games
• The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism
• Coherence resonance in a spatial prisoner's dilemma game

Cited by

• Social diversity and promotion of cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game
• Coevolutionary games—A mini review
• Noise-guided evolution within cyclical interactions
• Matjaž Perc [wikipedia]