The paradox of cooperation benefits.
It seems obvious that as the benefits of cooperation increase, the share of cooperators in the population should also increase. It is well known that positive assortment between cooperative types, for instance in spatially structured populations, provide better conditions for the evolution of cooperation than complete mixing. This study demonstrates that, assuming positive assortment, under most conditions higher cooperation benefits also increase the share of cooperators. On the other hand, under a specified range of payoff values, when at least two payoff parameters are modified, the reverse is true. The conditions for this paradox are determined for two-person social dilemmas: the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Hawks and Doves game, and the Stag Hunt game, assuming global selection and positive assortment.
Institute of Sociology and Social Policy, Corvinus University of Budapest, 1093 Budapest, Közraktár u 4-6, Hungary. nemeth.andras@freemail.hu
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D000533:Altruism; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003163:Competitive Behavior; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012919:Social Behavior