ArticlePLoS computational biology2021
Freedom to choose between public resources promotes cooperation.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Perceptual rationality: an evolutionary game theory of perceptually rational decision-making.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Evolution as a result of resource flow in ecosystems: Ecological dynamics can drive evolution.PloS one · 2023Article
- Interaction between games give rise to the evolution of moral norms of cooperation.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Evolution of cooperation and consistent personalities in public goods games.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Evolution of cooperation in costly institutions exhibits Red Queen and Black Queen dynamics in heterogeneous public goods.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Evolution of prosocial punishment in unstructured and structured populations and in the presence of antisocial punishment.PloS one · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
1 author.
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Abstract
As cooperation incurs a cost to the cooperator for others to benefit, its evolution seems to contradict natural selection. How evolution has resolved this obstacle has been among the most intensely studied questions in evolutionary theory in recent decades. Here, we show that having a choice between different public resources provides a simple mechanism for cooperation to flourish. Such a mechanism can be at work in many biological or social contexts where individuals can form different groups or join different institutions to perform a collective action task, or when they can choose between collective actions with different profitability. As a simple evolutionary model suggests, defectors tend to join the highest quality resource in such a context. This allows cooperators to survive and out-compete defectors by sheltering in a lower quality resource. Cooperation is maximized, however, when the qualities of the two highest quality resources are similar, and thus, they are almost interchangeable.
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