Gossip and Reputation in Social Dilemmas

2019 ◽  
pp. 192-213
Author(s):  
Manfred Milinski
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Interaction Partner ◽  
Indirect Reciprocity ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Trust Games ◽  
The Individual

In a social dilemma the interest of the individual is in conflict with that of the group. However, individuals will help their group, if they gain in reputation that pays off later. Future partners can observe cooperative or defective behavior or, more likely, hear about it through gossip. In Indirect Reciprocity games, Public Goods games, and Trust games gossip may be the only information a participant can use to decide whether she can trust her interaction partner and give away her holdings hoping for reciprocation. Even the mere potential for gossip can increase trust and trustworthiness thus promoting cooperation. Gossip is a cheap mechanism for disciplining free riders, potentially even extortioners. The temptation for manipulative gossip defines the gossiper’s dilemma. Psychological adaptations for assessing gossip veracity help to avoid being manipulated. The danger of false gossip is reduced when multiple gossips exist.

scholarly journals Group Formation and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: a Survey and Meta-Analytic Evidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Guido ◽  
Andrea Robbett ◽  
Rustam Romaniuc
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Sorting Method ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Social Dilemma Games

We survey the growing literature on group formation in the context of three types of social dilemma games: public goods games, common pool resources, and the prisoner’s dilemma. The 62 surveyed papers study the effect of different sorting mechanisms – endogenous, endogenous with the option to play the game, and exogenous – on cooperation rates. Our survey shows that cooperators are highly sensitive to the presence of free-riders, independently of the sorting mechanism. We complement the survey with a meta-analysis showing no difference in terms of cooperation between studies implementing an endogenous and exogenous sorting. What is more, we find that it is no more likely for a cooperator to be matched with like-minded partners in endogenously formed groups than in exogenously formed groups. These observations are related. As we show in the survey, the success of a sorting method in matching like-minded individuals and the levels of cooperation are closely interlinked.

scholarly journals Bringing tax avoiders to light: moral framing and shaming in a public goods experiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Stefanos A. Tsikas
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Social Sanctions ◽  
Moral Framing ◽  
Public Goods Experiment

Abstract With a linear public goods game played in six different variants, this article studies two channels that might moderate social dilemmas and increase cooperation without using pecuniary incentives: moral framing and shaming. We find that cooperation is increased when noncontributing to a public good is framed as morally debatable and socially harmful tax avoidance, while the mere description of a tax context has no effect. However, without social sanctions in place, cooperation quickly deteriorates due to social contagion. We find ‘shaming’ free-riders by disclosing their misdemeanor to act as a strong social sanction, irrespective of the context in which it is applied. Moralizing tax avoidance significantly reinforces shaming, compared with a simple tax context.

scholarly journals Explaining Cooperative Behavior in Public Goods Games: How Preferences and Beliefs Affect Contribution Levels

Games ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Ackermann ◽  
Ryan Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Endogenous Factors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Repeated Interaction ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
The Individual

There is a large body of evidence showing that a substantial proportion of people cooperate in public goods games, even if the situation is one-shot and completely anonymous. In the present study, we bring together two major endogenous factors that are known to affect cooperation levels, and in so doing replicate and extend previous empirical research on public goods problems in several important ways. We measure social preferences and concurrently elicit beliefs on the individual level using multiple methods, and at multiple times during the experiment. With this rich set of predictor variables at the individual level, we test how well individual contribution decisions can be accounted for in both a one-shot and a repeated interaction. We show that when heterogeneity in people’s preferences and beliefs is taken into consideration, more than 50% of the variance in individual choice behavior can be explained. Furthermore, we show that people do not only update their beliefs in a repeated public goods game, but also that their social preferences change, to some extent, in response to the choices of other decision makers.

scholarly journals Cooperation Enforcement and Collusion Resistance in Repeated Public Goods Games

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 2085-2092
Author(s):  
Kai Li ◽  
Dong Hao
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Mutual Cooperation ◽  
Collusion Resistance ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Simple Strategy ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Multi Agent

Enforcing cooperation among substantial agents is one of the main objectives for multi-agent systems. However, due to the existence of inherent social dilemmas in many scenarios, the free-rider problem may arise during agents’ long-run interactions and things become even severer when self-interested agents work in collusion with each other to get extra benefits. It is commonly accepted that in such social dilemmas, there exists no simple strategy for an agent whereby she can simultaneously manipulate on the utility of each of her opponents and further promote mutual cooperation among all agents. Here, we show that such strategies do exist. Under the conventional repeated public goods game, we novelly identify them and find that, when confronted with such strategies, a single opponent can maximize his utility only via global cooperation and any colluding alliance cannot get the upper hand. Since a full cooperation is individually optimal for any single opponent, a stable cooperation among all players can be achieved. Moreover, we experimentally show that these strategies can still promote cooperation even when the opponents are both self-learning and collusive.

REDUCED ENTANGLEMENT FOR QUANTUM GAMES

2003 ◽  
Vol 01 (03) ◽  
pp. 321-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
LI ZHANG ◽  
TAD HOGG
Keyword(s):  
Nash Equilibrium ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Entangled States ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Quantum Games ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Social Dilemma Games ◽  
Unique Nash Equilibrium

Quantum generalizations of conventional games exploit entangled states to improve performance. With many players, quantum games can require entangling many states. Such entanglement is difficult to implement, especially if the states must be communicated over some distance. To simplify possible implementations, we examine some quantum versions of social dilemma games and show their use of entanglement can be substantially reduced by randomly replacing some of the entangled states by unentangled ones. For the example of public goods games, we identify a unique Nash equilibrium invariant with respect to the amount of this replacement. We also show players obtain no advantage from adding more entanglement to states which they control. With many players, a fairly small number of entangled states can give nearly as good performance as using the full number of such states.

scholarly journals The evolution of anti-social rewarding and its countermeasures in public goods games

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1798) ◽  
pp. 20141994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Additional Condition ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Second Order ◽  
The Public ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Social Trap

Cooperation in joint enterprises can easily break down when self-interests are in conflict with collective benefits, causing a tragedy of the commons. In such social dilemmas, the possibility for contributors to invest in a common pool-rewards fund, which will be shared exclusively among contributors, can be powerful for averting the tragedy, as long as the second-order dilemma (i.e. withdrawing contribution to reward funds) can be overcome (e.g. with second-order sanctions). However, the present paper reveals the vulnerability of such pool-rewarding mechanisms to the presence of reward funds raised by defectors and shared among them (i.e. anti-social rewarding), as it causes a cooperation breakdown, even when second-order sanctions are possible. I demonstrate that escaping this social trap requires the additional condition that coalitions of defectors fare poorly compared with pro-socials, with either (i) better rewarding abilities for the latter or (ii) reward funds that are contingent upon the public good produced beforehand, allowing groups of contributors to invest more in reward funds than groups of defectors. These results suggest that the establishment of cooperation through a collective positive incentive mechanism is highly vulnerable to anti-social rewarding and requires additional countermeasures to act in combination with second-order sanctions.

Responsibility to Punish: Discouraging Free-Riders in Public Goods Games

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zack Devlin-Foltz ◽  
Katherine Lim
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Public Goods Games

scholarly journals BRIBE AND PUNISHMENT: EFFECTS OF SIGNALING, GOSSIPING, AND BRIBERY IN PUBLIC GOODS GAMES

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (06) ◽  
pp. 755-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. L. C. BAZZAN ◽  
SÍLVIO R. DAHMEN
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Social Attachments

In public goods games, individuals contribute to create a benefit for a group. However this attracts free-riders, who enjoy the benefits without necessarily contributing. Nonetheless, in real-life scenarios cooperation does not collapse. Several explanations have been proposed in order to explain this phenomenon, such as punishment and signaling. In the present work, we investigate the effects of new elements associated with punishment upon signaling such as gossiping and bribery. Agents may denounce free-riders (who on their turn get punished) or may be bribed to remain silent and even spread rumors of false good behavior. Having a model with richer social mechanisms enable us to test how cooperation develops in situations in which players have social attachments. Our results show that when punishment and bribery are present, the levels of contribution are kept at a relatively higher value compared to the situation when no punishment is exercised. As to what regards gossiping, if the number of free-riders is high, finding mechanisms to prevent gossiping could be an important step in order to increase the contribution. If the ratio between free-riders and other agents is about one, then gossiping does affect contribution in a positive way.

scholarly journals Evolution in group-structured populations can resolve the tragedy of the commons

2006 ◽  
Vol 273 (1593) ◽  
pp. 1477-1481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Killingback ◽  
Jonas Bieri ◽  
Thomas Flatt
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Structured Populations ◽  
Indirect Reciprocity ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Animal Societies ◽  
Trait Group

Public goods are the key features of all human societies and are also important in many animal societies. Collaborative hunting and collective defence are but two examples of public goods that have played a crucial role in the development of human societies and still play an important role in many animal societies. Public goods allow societies composed largely of cooperators to outperform societies composed mainly of non-cooperators. However, public goods also provide an incentive for individuals to be selfish by benefiting from the public good without contributing to it. This is the essential paradox of cooperation—known variously as the Tragedy of the Commons, Multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma or Social Dilemma. Here, we show that a new model for evolution in group-structured populations provides a simple and effective mechanism for the emergence and maintenance of cooperation in such a social dilemma. This model does not depend on kin selection, direct or indirect reciprocity, punishment, optional participation or trait-group selection. Since this mechanism depends only on population dynamics and requires no cognitive abilities on the part of the agents concerned, it potentially applies to organisms at all levels of complexity.

Personality, Punishment and Public Goods: Strategic Shifts towards Cooperation as a Matter of Dispositional Honesty–Humility

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin E. Hilbig ◽  
Ingo Zettler ◽  
Timo Heydasch
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Longitudinal Design ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Openness To Experience ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
Free Riders

Contributions in the public goods game—a classical social dilemma situation—have been shown to depend strongly on the presence versus absence of punishment or sanctions for free riders. Also, there appear to be noteworthy individual differences in the degree to which decision makers cooperate. Herein, we aimed to bring these two lines of research together. Firstly, we predicted that both presence of punishment and high dispositional Honesty–Humility (as conceptualized in the Honesty–Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to experience model of personality) should yield higher contributions. Secondly, and more importantly, we expected an interaction, such that only those low in Honesty–Humility would condition their behaviour on the presence versus absence of punishment, thus employing cooperation strategically. In line with the hypothesis, the results of two experiments (one of which comprised a longitudinal design) corroborated that the degree to which decision makers shift towards higher contributions when punishment is introduced depends on their dispositional level of Honesty–Humility. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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