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Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions

Situations where individuals have to contribute to joint efforts or share scarce resources are ubiquitous. Yet, without proper mechanisms to ensure cooperation, the evolutionary pressure to maximize individual success tends to create a tragedy of the commons (such as over-fishing or the destruction...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Helbing, Dirk, Szolnoki, Attila, Perc, Matjaž, Szabó, György
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2861625/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20454464
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000758
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author Helbing, Dirk
Szolnoki, Attila
Perc, Matjaž
Szabó, György
author_facet Helbing, Dirk
Szolnoki, Attila
Perc, Matjaž
Szabó, György
author_sort Helbing, Dirk
collection PubMed
description Situations where individuals have to contribute to joint efforts or share scarce resources are ubiquitous. Yet, without proper mechanisms to ensure cooperation, the evolutionary pressure to maximize individual success tends to create a tragedy of the commons (such as over-fishing or the destruction of our environment). This contribution addresses a number of related puzzles of human behavior with an evolutionary game theoretical approach as it has been successfully used to explain the behavior of other biological species many times, from bacteria to vertebrates. Our agent-based model distinguishes individuals applying four different behavioral strategies: non-cooperative individuals (“defectors”), cooperative individuals abstaining from punishment efforts (called “cooperators” or “second-order free-riders”), cooperators who punish non-cooperative behavior (“moralists”), and defectors, who punish other defectors despite being non-cooperative themselves (“immoralists”). By considering spatial interactions with neighboring individuals, our model reveals several interesting effects: First, moralists can fully eliminate cooperators. This spreading of punishing behavior requires a segregation of behavioral strategies and solves the “second-order free-rider problem”. Second, the system behavior changes its character significantly even after very long times (“who laughs last laughs best effect”). Third, the presence of a number of defectors can largely accelerate the victory of moralists over non-punishing cooperators. Fourth, in order to succeed, moralists may profit from immoralists in a way that appears like an “unholy collaboration”. Our findings suggest that the consideration of punishment strategies allows one to understand the establishment and spreading of “moral behavior” by means of game-theoretical concepts. This demonstrates that quantitative biological modeling approaches are powerful even in domains that have been addressed with non-mathematical concepts so far. The complex dynamics of certain social behaviors become understandable as the result of an evolutionary competition between different behavioral strategies.
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spelling pubmed-28616252010-05-07 Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions Helbing, Dirk Szolnoki, Attila Perc, Matjaž Szabó, György PLoS Comput Biol Research Article Situations where individuals have to contribute to joint efforts or share scarce resources are ubiquitous. Yet, without proper mechanisms to ensure cooperation, the evolutionary pressure to maximize individual success tends to create a tragedy of the commons (such as over-fishing or the destruction of our environment). This contribution addresses a number of related puzzles of human behavior with an evolutionary game theoretical approach as it has been successfully used to explain the behavior of other biological species many times, from bacteria to vertebrates. Our agent-based model distinguishes individuals applying four different behavioral strategies: non-cooperative individuals (“defectors”), cooperative individuals abstaining from punishment efforts (called “cooperators” or “second-order free-riders”), cooperators who punish non-cooperative behavior (“moralists”), and defectors, who punish other defectors despite being non-cooperative themselves (“immoralists”). By considering spatial interactions with neighboring individuals, our model reveals several interesting effects: First, moralists can fully eliminate cooperators. This spreading of punishing behavior requires a segregation of behavioral strategies and solves the “second-order free-rider problem”. Second, the system behavior changes its character significantly even after very long times (“who laughs last laughs best effect”). Third, the presence of a number of defectors can largely accelerate the victory of moralists over non-punishing cooperators. Fourth, in order to succeed, moralists may profit from immoralists in a way that appears like an “unholy collaboration”. Our findings suggest that the consideration of punishment strategies allows one to understand the establishment and spreading of “moral behavior” by means of game-theoretical concepts. This demonstrates that quantitative biological modeling approaches are powerful even in domains that have been addressed with non-mathematical concepts so far. The complex dynamics of certain social behaviors become understandable as the result of an evolutionary competition between different behavioral strategies. Public Library of Science 2010-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC2861625/ /pubmed/20454464 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000758 Text en Helbing et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Helbing, Dirk
Szolnoki, Attila
Perc, Matjaž
Szabó, György
Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions
title Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions
title_full Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions
title_fullStr Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions
title_full_unstemmed Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions
title_short Evolutionary Establishment of Moral and Double Moral Standards through Spatial Interactions
title_sort evolutionary establishment of moral and double moral standards through spatial interactions
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2861625/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20454464
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000758
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