Egoistic punishment outcompetes altruistic punishment in the spatial public goods game

The evolution of costly punishment is a puzzle due to cooperators’ second-order free-riding. Previous studies have proposed many solutions mainly focused on reducing the punishment cost or punishing second-order free riders directly or indirectly. We attempt to explain this confusion from the perspective of punishment motivation, which is why the punisher is willing to pay the cost. The answer is that the punisher is egoistic. Egoistic punishment aims to protect punishers’ own cooperative benefits shared by the defectors. In such case, egoistic punishers would pay a cost in punishing defectors and retrieve lost payoffs from defectors. Here, we examined the evolution and performance of egoistic punishment and compared it with typical altruistic punishment using classic peer-punishment and pool-punishment modes. Results showed egoistic punishment can evolve and effectively promote cooperation within a large parameter range, whether in a well-mixed or structured population, or through peer-punishment or pool-punishment modes. This result is also robust to different strategy-updating rules. The evolution under the pool-punishment mechanism is more complicated. The influence of parameters is counter-intuitive because of cycle dominance; namely, the cost is the key factor to control the level of cooperation and the fine determines the ratio of the punishers and cooperators. Compared with altruistic punishment, egoistic punishment can promote cooperation in a lower-fine and higher-cost area, especially in the pool punishment mode, and the egoistic punishers have stronger survivability. Egoistic punishers represent the natural fairness in a social system. Results revealed that focusing on individual equity can significantly promote collective cooperation. This study provides another explanation for the evolution of costly punishment.