Incentives and opportunism: from the carrot to the stick

Hilbe, Christian; Sigmund, Karl

doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0065

Cited by 172 publications

(185 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Formal analysis shows that "punish all theft/stop stealing from victims who punish" is evolutionarily stable. This model, and many others that followed, offered a straightforward explanation for retaliatory punishment in repeated/reputational interactions (7)(8)(9)(10). As a consequence, much attention has shifted to the puzzle of "altruistic" punishment in one-shot, anonymous settings (11,12).…”

Section: The Evolution Of Retaliatory Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of flexibility and rigidity in retaliatory punishment

Morris

MacGlashan

Littman

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Natural selection designs some social behaviors to depend on flexible learning processes, whereas others are relatively rigid or reflexive. What determines the balance between these two approaches? We offer a detailed case study in the context of a two-player game with antisocial behavior and retaliatory punishment. We show that each player in this game-a "thief" and a "victim"-must balance two competing strategic interests. Flexibility is valuable because it allows adaptive differentiation in the face of diverse opponents. However, it is also risky because, in competitive games, it can produce systematically suboptimal behaviors. Using a combination of evolutionary analysis, reinforcement learning simulations, and behavioral experimentation, we show that the resolution to this tension-and the adaptation of social behavior in this game-hinges on the game's learning dynamics. Our findings clarify punishment's adaptive basis, offer a case study of the evolution of social preferences, and highlight an important connection between natural selection and learning in the resolution of social conflicts. punishment | evolution | reinforcement learning | game theory | commitment H uman social behavior is sometimes remarkably rigid, and other times remarkably flexible. A key challenge for evolutionary theory is to understand why. That is, when will natural selection favor "reflexive" social behaviors, and when will it instead favor more flexible processes that guide social decisionmaking by learning?We investigate a case study of this problem that illuminates some general principles of the evolution of social cognition. Specifically, we model the dynamic between antisocial behavior and retaliatory punishment in repeated relationships. Our goal is to understand when natural selection will favor flexibility (e.g., "try stealing and see if you can get away with it") versus rigidity ("punish thieves no matter what"). We approach this question through both a game-theoretic model of punishment and agentbased simulations that allow for the evolution of the rewards that guide learning. We demonstrate that the evolution of punishment depends on the learning dynamics of competing flexible agents, and that this interaction between learning and evolution can produce individuals with innate "social preferences," such as a taste for revenge (1-4). The Evolution of Retaliatory PunishmentIndividuals often punish those who harm them, even at a cost to themselves (5, 6). The adaptive rationale of this behavior seems clear in repeated or reputational interactions: Punishment promises a long-run gain by deterring social partners from doing future harm. This logic was classically formalized with a simple two-party repeated game (5) (Fig. 1A). On each round, a thief has the option to either steal from a victim (earning s and inflicting a cost −s) or do nothing. In response, the victim may either punish (paying a cost −c to inflict a cost −p) or do nothing. Formal analysis shows that "punish all theft/stop stealing from victims who punish" is ev...

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Section: The Evolution Of Retaliatory Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of flexibility and rigidity in retaliatory punishment

Morris

MacGlashan

Littman

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…So far, the evolution of cooperation and punishment through reputation was mainly investigated in dyadic interactions (dos Santos et al, 2011;Hilbe & Sigmund, 2010;Hilbe & Traulsen, 2012). A few studies considered the effects of punishment in larger group sizes but with strategies that were not directly based on individual punishment reputation, or the effect of errors in reputation assessment was not investigated (Boyd & Richerson, 1992;Brandt et al, 2003;Gardner & West, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Until recently, such costly punishment has been perceived as an evolutionary puzzle because punishers accept costs to harm others while third parties benefit from the increased cooperation levels (Dreber et al, 2008;Fehr & Gächter, 2002;Rankin et al, 2009;Sigmund, 2007;Wu et al, 2009). However, if punishers can build up a punishment reputation that affects later decisions of others, punishment can lead to long-term benefits that compensate or even outweigh the immediate costs of punishment (dos Santos et al, 2011;dos Santos et al, 2013;Hilbe & Sigmund, 2010;Hilbe & Traulsen, 2012). This holds for dyadic interactions, but it is unclear whether punishment reputation facilitates the emergence of cooperation also groups larger than 2.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups

Santos

Wedekind

2015

Evolution and Human Behavior

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Citation: dos Santos M., Wedekind C. 2015. Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups. Evolution and Human Behavior 36(1): 59-64.The content of this preprint is identical with the published paper except from small edits made at proofs. AbstractCooperation among unrelated individuals can arise if decisions to help others can be based on reputation. While working for dyadic interactions, reputation-use in social dilemmas involving many individuals (e.g. public goods games) becomes increasingly difficult as groups become larger and errors more frequent. Reputation is therefore believed to have played a minor role for the evolution of cooperation in collective action dilemmas such as those faced by early humans. Here, we show in computer simulations that a reputation system based on punitive actions can overcome these problems and, compared to reputation system based on generous actions, (i) is more likely to lead to the evolution of cooperation in sizable groups, (ii) more effectively sustains cooperation within larger groups, and (iii) is more robust to errors in reputation assessment. Punishment and punishment reputation could therefore have played crucial roles in the evolution of cooperation within larger groups of humans.

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“…Similarly, some humans also reward their cooperative partners [35]; thus several papers have dealt with positive incentives. Some recent models have shown, for example, that the appropriate dose of the carrot [36] or the convenient combination with the stick when agents are opportunistic [37] can notably enhance the triumph of cooperation.…”

Section: R S T P mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of punishment in a mobile population playing the prisoner's dilemma game

Amor

Fort

2011

Phys. Rev. E

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We deal with a system of prisoner's dilemma players undergoing continuous motion in a two-dimensional plane. In contrast to previous work, we introduce altruistic punishment after the game. We find punishing only a few of the cooperator-defector interactions is enough to lead the system to a cooperative state in environments where otherwise defection would take over the population. This happens even with soft nonsocial punishment (where both cooperators and defectors punish other players, a behavior observed in many human populations). For high enough mobilities or temptations to defect, low rates of social punishment can no longer avoid the breakdown of cooperation.

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Incentives and opportunism: from the carrot to the stick

Cited by 172 publications

References 47 publications

Evolution of flexibility and rigidity in retaliatory punishment

Evolution of flexibility and rigidity in retaliatory punishment

Reputation based on punishment rather than generosity allows for evolution of cooperation in sizable groups

Effects of punishment in a mobile population playing the prisoner's dilemma game

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