Berlin 2008 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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SYDN: Symposium Game theory in dynamical systems

SYDN 1: Game theory in dynamical systems

SYDN 1.1: Hauptvortrag

Freitag, 29. Februar 2008, 10:10–10:50, H 0105

Volunteering and Punishment in Public Goods games — •Christoph Hauert — Harvard University, USA

Understanding the evolution of cooperation represents a major challenge in biology and social sciences. Cooperative behavior is costly to the cooperator while providing benefits to other individuals. Since groups of cooperators are better off than groups of non-cooperating defectors this generates a conflict of interest between the individual and the group. Cooperation can be stabilized by punishing defectors. Punishment is ubiquitous in animal and human societies - ranging from toxin producing microorganisms to law enforcement institutions. However, it remains unresolved how initially rare and costly punishment behavior can gain a foothold and establish a social norm in a population. In nature, animals and humans often carefully select their interaction partners or adjust their behavioral patterns in response to them. In the simplest case they simply refuse to participate in risky enterprises. Such voluntary participation in social endeavors is an efficient mechanism to prevent deadlocks in states of mutual defection and thus represents a potent promoter of cooperation but fails to stabilize it. However, the combined efforts of punishment and volunteering are capable of changing the odds in favor of cooperation - but only in finite populations. Under the stochastic dynamics of finite populations with mutation and selection the freedom to withdraw leads to prosocial coercion. This implements Hardin's principle to overcome the Tragedy of the Commune: "mutual coercion mutually [and voluntarily] agreed upon".