title: Impact of Social Reward on the Evolution of the Cooperation Behavior in Complex Networks.
abstract: Social reward, as a significant mechanism explaining the evolution of cooperation, has attracted great attention both theoretically and experimentally. In this paper, we study the evolution of cooperation by proposing a reward model in network population, where a third strategy, reward, as an independent yet particular type of cooperation is introduced in 2-person evolutionary games. Specifically, a new kind of role corresponding to reward strategy, reward agents, is defined, which is aimed at increasing the income of cooperators by applying to them a social reward. Results from numerical simulations show that consideration of social reward greatly promotes the evolution of cooperation, which is confirmed for different network topologies and two evolutionary games. Moreover, we explore the microscopic mechanisms for the promotion of cooperation in the three-strategy model. As expected, the reward agents play a vital role in the formation of cooperative clusters, thus resisting the aggression of defectors. Our research might provide valuable insights into further exploring the nature of cooperation in the real world.
authors.affiliation: Coordinated Innovation Center for Computable Modeling in Management Science, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin 300222, China.
authors.forename: Yu'e
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Coordinated Innovation Center for Computable Modeling in Management Science, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin 300222, China.
authors.forename: Shuhua
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Coordinated Innovation Center for Computable Modeling in Management Science, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin 300222, China.
authors.forename: Zhipeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Coordinated Innovation Center for Computable Modeling in Management Science, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin 300222, China.
authors.forename: Zhenghong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Deng
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression / Q000502:physiology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012201:Reward