scholarly journals A dynamic over games drives selfish agents to win–win outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1941) ◽  
pp. 20202630
Author(s):  
Seth Frey ◽  
Curtis Atkisson

Understanding human institutions, animal cultures and other social systems requires flexible formalisms that describe how their members change them from within. We introduce a framework for modelling how agents change the games they participate in. We contrast this between-game ‘institutional evolution’ with the more familiar within-game ‘behavioural evolution’. We model institutional change by following small numbers of persistent agents as they select and play a changing series of games. Starting from an initial game, a group of agents trace trajectories through game space by navigating to increasingly preferable games until they converge on ‘attractor’ games. Agents use their ‘institutional preferences' for game features (such as stability, fairness and efficiency) to choose between neighbouring games. We use this framework to pose a pressing question: what kinds of games does institutional evolution select for; what is in the attractors? After computing institutional change trajectories over the two-player space, we find that attractors have disproportionately fair outcomes, even though the agents who produce them are strictly self-interested and indifferent to fairness. This seems to occur because game fairness co-occurs with the self-serving features these agents do actually prefer. We thus present institutional evolution as a mechanism for encouraging the spontaneous emergence of cooperation among small groups of inherently selfish agents, without space, reputation, repetition, or other more familiar mechanisms. Game space trajectories provide a flexible, testable formalism for modelling the interdependencies of behavioural and institutional evolutionary processes, as well as a mechanism for the evolution of cooperation.

Author(s):  
John Maynard Smith ◽  
Eors Szathmary

Over the history of life there have been several major changes in the way genetic information is organized and transmitted from one generation to the next. These transitions include the origin of life itself, the first eukaryotic cells, reproduction by sexual means, the appearance of multicellular plants and animals, the emergence of cooperation and of animal societies, and the unique language ability of humans. This ambitious book provides the first unified discussion of the full range of these transitions. The authors highlight the similarities between different transitions--between the union of replicating molecules to form chromosomes and of cells to form multicellular organisms, for example--and show how understanding one transition sheds light on others. They trace a common theme throughout the history of evolution: after a major transition some entities lose the ability to replicate independently, becoming able to reproduce only as part of a larger whole. The authors investigate this pattern and why selection between entities at a lower level does not disrupt selection at more complex levels. Their explanation encompasses a compelling theory of the evolution of cooperation at all levels of complexity. Engagingly written and filled with numerous illustrations, this book can be read with enjoyment by anyone with an undergraduate training in biology. It is ideal for advanced discussion groups on evolution and includes accessible discussions of a wide range of topics, from molecular biology and linguistics to insect societies.


1969 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen-P'ing Hao

In Chinese history, few reformers have been merchants and, prior to Cheng Kuan-ying, none of them was a merchant working for foreigners. In the late Ch'ing, the rise of the merchant class was remarkable and the reformers came from varying social backgrounds. Yet Cheng Kuan-ying (1842–ca. 1923) was the only noted merchant-reformer in this period. Due to his association with the foreign merchants, he was probably the first reformer in modern China who mastered a Western language. This fact made his reform proposals unique in many ways, although his understanding of the West as a whole was limited. The significance of Cheng Kuan-ying as a reformer lies in the fact that he implicitly challenged the programs of the self-strengthening movement by pointing out the necessity of institutional change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (07) ◽  
pp. 1450025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Peng ◽  
Xu-Wen Wang ◽  
Qian Lu ◽  
Qing-Ke Zeng ◽  
Bing-Hong Wang

In the light of the prospect theory (PT), we study the prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) on square lattice by integrating the deterministic and Data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficient rule into adaptive rules: the individual will change evolutionary rule and migrate if its payoff is lower than their aspiration levels. Whether the individual choose to change the evolutionary rule and migrate is determined by the relation between its payoff and aspiration level. The results show that the cooperation frequency can hold unchange with the increasing of temptation to defect. The individual chooses to adopt DEA efficient rule and to migrate that can induce the emergence of cooperation as the payoff is lower than its aspiration.


1999 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
J. T'zsér ◽  
M. Mézes

This study was conducted to compare three different methods for calculating scrotal circumference (ASC1, ASC2, ASC3) adjusted to 365 days of age in Charolais, Limousin and Hungarian Fleckvieh young bulls at the end of the self-performance test. Young breeding bulls from three Charolais, Limousin and Hungarian Fleckvieh breeding farms (farm A: n = 40; farm B: n = 9; farm C: n = 11) were used. The young bulls were kept in loose housing system, in small groups, and fed a diet based on maize silage and concentrate. The scrotal circumference of young bulls was measured at the widest part of the scrotum at the beginning and at the end of the test. Significant growth was observed (+13.6 cm; +8.9 cm; +10.5 cm, P < 0.001) in scrotal circumference (SC) for all breeds except the Hungarian Fleckvieh (ASC2-ASC3: 37.5 vs. 37.6 cm). All differences among the means of the measured and adjusted SCs were statistically confirmed at the P < 0.05 level of significance. A moderate to close positive correlation (r = 0.49-0.99) was calculated among the measured SC and the three types of ASC. The results suggest that method I (ASC1) and method II (ASC2) should be used by the breeders for adjusting scrotal circumferences in the practice.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin R. Siracusa ◽  
Stan Boutin ◽  
Ben Dantzer ◽  
Jeffrey E. Lane ◽  
David W. Coltman ◽  
...  

SummaryOne of the outstanding questions in evolutionary biology is the extent to which mutually beneficial interactions and kin-selection can facilitate the evolution of cooperation by mitigating conflict between interacting organisms. The indirect fitness benefits gained from associating with kin are an important pathway to conflict resolution [1], but conflict can also be resolved if individuals gain direct benefits from cooperating with one another (e.g. mutualism or reciprocity) [2]. Owing to the kin-structured nature of many animal societies, it has been difficult for previous research to assess the relative importance of these mechanisms [3–5]. However, one area that might allow for the relative roles of kin-selection and mutualistic benefits to be disentangled is in the resolution of conflict over territorial space [6]. While much research has focused on group-living species, the question of how cooperation can first be favoured in solitary, territorial species remains a key question. Using 22 years of data from a population of North American red squirrels, we assessed how kinship and familiarity with neighbours affected fitness in a territorial mammal. While living near kin did not enhance fitness, familiarity with neighbours increased survival and annual reproductive success. These fitness benefits were strong enough to compensate for the effects of aging later in life, with potential consequences for the evolution of senescence. We suggest that such substantial fitness benefits provide the opportunity for the evolution of cooperation between adversarial neighbours, offering insight into the role that mutually beneficial behaviours might play in facilitating and stabilizing social systems.Graphical Abstract


Osvitolohiya ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
Maria Kultayeva ◽  

In the article are regarded some evolutional tendencies of philosophical pedagogy in the German theoretical tradition. The turn from the normative theories to functional-structuring ones is analyzed on the factual material of Neo-Hegelianism (E. Spranger, T. Litt) and on Adorno’s half-education theory, where the half-education is represented as a form of educational alienation und contributes its conversion to anti-education. One of the alternative theoretical variants proposed by A. Tremlis deduced from theory of the self-referent social systems. Is showed that critics and self-critics of different philosophical and pedagogical constructs is giving impulses for development of philosophical pedagogy as a reflection of the inside logic of learning and educational practices including the claims of globalization. Despite numerous publications devoted to the problem of philosophical and pedagogical comprehension of the challenges of globalization that education is challenged with, the issue is still at an early stage. Nevertheless, the analysis shows that it has already made a certain contribution to the study of real and possible pathologies for the development of modern education. The findings of the research show that the reflection of the state and problems of education in philosophical pedagogy is, at the same time, always a test of the ability of pedagogical theories to fulfill their general civilization function. The activation of its ability to self-criticism is required to cope with that. Without the above mentioned factor, it can easily integrate into political ideology or adapt to the demands of the mass culture, turning from the guardian of the humanistic potential of education into its academically trained destroyer.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Diekman ◽  
Toni Schmader

We examine gender as a cultural construct enacted through social cognitive processes that are embedded within the self, social interactions, and societal institutions. The embeddedness perspective elaborates how the binary gender categorization can create quite real gendered outcomes and experiences even if gender differences are not biologically essential. These categories take on a reality outside of the mind of perceivers because the meanings attached to gender categories are shared by others in the culture, enacted in social interactions, internalized into self-views, and maintained by social systems. Societal institutions explicitly and implicitly organize around gender, producing gendered norms, roles, and expectations. These norms, roles, and expectations shape the nature of interpersonal interactions both within and across gender lines and an individual’s self-selected experiences. Critically, these social interactions and personal choices in turn create behavioral and cognitive confirmation of the gendered expectations of others. Gendered expectations and experiences become internalized into the self, including one’s own self-concept and gender identity. We close by examining implications of this perspective for gender differences and similarities in social cognition, as well as malleability and stability in gender cognitions and outcomes.


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