Investment preference promotes cooperation in spatial public goods game

PLoS One. 2018 Nov 14;13(11):e0206486. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206486. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

It is usually assumed that each cooperator contributes equally to different public pools in spatial public goods game. However, it is more reasonable to invest differently according to individual investment preference. In this paper, an extended public goods game, in which cooperators contribute to the groups according to the investment preference, is developed. The investment preference of a cooperator is characterized by the fraction of the cooperator from his/her own memory about a group and the intensity of investment preference is represented by a tunable parameter α. The well-mixed population and the structured population are analyzed under this mechanism. It is shown that the investment preference can give rise to coordination. Moreover, the extensive numerical simulation results show that with the increasing of investment preference density or memory length, the proportion of cooperation can increase monotonously. This is because the investment preference could help cooperators resist the invasion from defectors. Compared with the basic version, the new mechanism is able to promote cooperation effectively. Our research may provide a valuable insight for further exploring the nature of cooperation in the real world.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cooperative Behavior*
  • Game Theory*
  • Time Factors

Grants and funding

This project was supported in part by the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91430108), the National Basic Research Program (2012CB955804), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11771322), the Scientific Research Plan of Tianjin Municipal Education Committee (2017KJ236) and the Graduate School of Tianjin University of Finance and Economics (2016TCB05). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.