Evolution of cooperation driven by zealots

Abstract

Recent experimental results with humans involved in social dilemma games suggest that cooperation may be a contagious phenomenon and that the selection pressure operating on evolutionary dynamics (i.e., mimicry) is relatively weak. I propose an evolutionary dynamics model that links these experimental findings and evolution of cooperation. By assuming a small fraction of (imperfect) zealous cooperators, I show that a large fraction of cooperation emerges in evolutionary dynamics of social dilemma games. Even if defection is more lucrative than cooperation for most individuals, they often mimic cooperation of fellows unless the selection pressure is very strong. Then, zealous cooperators can transform the population to be even fully cooperative under standard evolutionary dynamics.

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References in corpus (6)

• Stochastic Dynamics of Invasion and Fixation
• Does a Single Zealot Affect an Infinite Group of Voters ?
• On the Role of Zealotry in the Voter Model
• The role of inflexible minorities in the breaking of democratic opinion dynamics
• Wisdom of groups promotes cooperation in evolutionary social dilemmas
• Stochastic dynamics of the prisoner's dilemma with cooperation facilitators

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Statistical physics of vaccination
• Effectiveness of conditional punishment for the evolution of public cooperation
• The evolution of trust and trustworthiness
• Zealots in the mean-field noisy voter model
• Opinion control in complex networks
• Nonlinear $q$-voter model with inflexible zealots
• A Heterogeneous Out-of-Equilibrium Nonlinear $q$-Voter Model with Zealotry
• Commitment versus persuasion in the three-party constrained voter model