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Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity

Upstream reciprocity (also called generalized reciprocity) is a putative mechanism for cooperation in social dilemma situations with which players help others when they are helped by somebody else. It is a type of indirect reciprocity. Although upstream reciprocity is often observed in experiments,...

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Autor principal: Masuda, Naoki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21998641
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025190
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author Masuda, Naoki
author_facet Masuda, Naoki
author_sort Masuda, Naoki
collection PubMed
description Upstream reciprocity (also called generalized reciprocity) is a putative mechanism for cooperation in social dilemma situations with which players help others when they are helped by somebody else. It is a type of indirect reciprocity. Although upstream reciprocity is often observed in experiments, most theories suggest that it is operative only when players form short cycles such as triangles, implying a small population size, or when it is combined with other mechanisms that promote cooperation on their own. An expectation is that real social networks, which are known to be full of triangles and other short cycles, may accommodate upstream reciprocity. In this study, I extend the upstream reciprocity game proposed for a directed cycle by Boyd and Richerson to the case of general networks. The model is not evolutionary and concerns the conditions under which the unanimity of cooperative players is a Nash equilibrium. I show that an abundance of triangles or other short cycles in a network does little to promote upstream reciprocity. Cooperation is less likely for a larger population size even if triangles are abundant in the network. In addition, in contrast to the results for evolutionary social dilemma games on networks, scale-free networks lead to less cooperation than networks with a homogeneous degree distribution.
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spelling pubmed-31877592011-10-13 Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity Masuda, Naoki PLoS One Research Article Upstream reciprocity (also called generalized reciprocity) is a putative mechanism for cooperation in social dilemma situations with which players help others when they are helped by somebody else. It is a type of indirect reciprocity. Although upstream reciprocity is often observed in experiments, most theories suggest that it is operative only when players form short cycles such as triangles, implying a small population size, or when it is combined with other mechanisms that promote cooperation on their own. An expectation is that real social networks, which are known to be full of triangles and other short cycles, may accommodate upstream reciprocity. In this study, I extend the upstream reciprocity game proposed for a directed cycle by Boyd and Richerson to the case of general networks. The model is not evolutionary and concerns the conditions under which the unanimity of cooperative players is a Nash equilibrium. I show that an abundance of triangles or other short cycles in a network does little to promote upstream reciprocity. Cooperation is less likely for a larger population size even if triangles are abundant in the network. In addition, in contrast to the results for evolutionary social dilemma games on networks, scale-free networks lead to less cooperation than networks with a homogeneous degree distribution. Public Library of Science 2011-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC3187759/ /pubmed/21998641 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025190 Text en Naoki Masuda. 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
Masuda, Naoki
Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity
title Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity
title_full Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity
title_fullStr Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity
title_full_unstemmed Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity
title_short Clustering in Large Networks Does Not Promote Upstream Reciprocity
title_sort clustering in large networks does not promote upstream reciprocity
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21998641
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025190
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