Cita:
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 279(1), Jun. 2011, pp. 113–119
ISSN:
0022-5193
DOI:
10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.03.017
Agradecimientos:
Financial support from Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologíıa (Spain) under projects FIS2009-13730-C02-02 (A.A.),
FIS2009-13370-C02-01 (J.C. and R.J.R.) and MOSAICO
(J.A.C.); from the Director, Office of Science, Computational
and Technology Research, U.S. Department of Energy
under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 (A.A.); from
the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and of the
Government of Catalonia (A.A.); from the Generalitat de
Catalunya under project 2009SGR0838 (A.A.) 2009SGR0164
(J.C. and R.J.R.) and from Comunidad de Madrid under project
MODELICO-CM (J.A.C.). R.J.R. acknowledges the financial
support of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (PIF grant)
and the Spanish government (FPU grant).
Proyecto:
Comunidad de Madrid. S2009/ESP-1691/MODELICO Gobierno de España. FIS2009-13730-C02-02 Gobierno de España. FIS2009-13370-C02-01 Gobierno de España. FIS2006-01485/MOSAICO
Understanding the emergence of cooperation is a central issue in evolutionary game theory. The hardest setup for the attainment of cooperation in a population of individuals is the Public Goods game in which cooperative agents generate a common good at their oUnderstanding the emergence of cooperation is a central issue in evolutionary game theory. The hardest setup for the attainment of cooperation in a population of individuals is the Public Goods game in which cooperative agents generate a common good at their own expenses, while defectors "free-ride" this good. Eventually this causes the exhaustion of the good, a situation which is bad for everybody. Previous results have shown that introducing reputation, allowing for volunteer participation, punishing defectors, rewarding cooperators or structuring agents, can enhance cooperation. Here we present a model which shows how the introduction of rare, malicious agents &- that we term jokers &- performing just destructive actions on the other agents induce bursts of cooperation. The appearance of jokers promotes a rock-paper-scissors dynamics, where jokers outbeat defectors and cooperators outperform jokers, which are subsequently invaded by defectors. Thus, paradoxically, the existence of destructive agents acting indiscriminately promotes cooperation.[+][-]
