Win-stay-lose-learn promotes cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game with voluntary participation

Chen Chu; Jinzhuo Liu; Chen Shen; Jiahua Jin; Lei Shi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171680

Win-stay-lose-learn promotes cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game with voluntary participation

PLoS One. 2017 Feb 9;12(2):e0171680. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171680. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Chen Chu¹, Jinzhuo Liu², Chen Shen¹, Jiahua Jin^{1

3}, Lei Shi¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Statistics and Mathematics, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
² School of Software, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
³ Library of Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, Yunnan, China.

Abstract

Voluntary participation, demonstrated to be a simple yet effective mechanism to promote persistent cooperative behavior, has been extensively studied. It has also been verified that the aspiration-based win-stay-lose-learn strategy updating rule promotes the evolution of cooperation. Inspired by this well-known fact, we combine the Win-Stay-Lose-Learn updating rule with voluntary participation: Players maintain their strategies when they are satisfied, or players attempt to imitate the strategy of one randomly chosen neighbor. We find that this mechanism maintains persistent cooperative behavior, even further promotes the evolution of cooperation under certain conditions.

MeSH terms

Antisocial Personality Disorder / psychology
Biobehavioral Sciences
Computer Simulation
Cooperative Behavior*
Game Theory
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Learning / physiology*
Personal Satisfaction
Prisoner Dilemma*
Social Participation* / psychology
Time Factors
Volunteers* / psychology

Grants and funding

We appreciate the support from (I) National Natural Science Foundation of China (Yunnan United Fund (Key Project) grants no. U1302267), (II) National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants no. 11671348, 11161053, 61462092, 61662085), (III) Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of Yunnan Province (grants no.2014FD006, 2015FA014); (IV) Science Foundation of Yunnan Province Education Department (No. 2015Y013). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.