2013/11/27 by Attila Szolnoki, Matjaž Perc · 4 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevx.3.041021
openalex publication_date 2013/11/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Why do humans cooperate with other unrelated humans? Correlated use of both a ``reward'' and a ``punishment'' strategy has been thought to be an evolutionary force underlying our predisposition for cooperation: if others are kind to us, we are kind to them; if they are exploitive, we may stop cooperating or tend to punish them. Recent human experiments show, however, that individuals mostly use one strategy or the other, rarely both. Now, statistical physical simulations of an evolutionary game model lend significant support to these findings.