Coupling with opinion dynamics promotes prosocial behavior in multilayer networks

The useful part

by Jnanajyoti Bhaumik, Naoki Masuda Various theoretical and empirical studies have accounted for why humans cooperate in competitive environments. Although prior work has revealed that network structure and multiplex interactions can promote cooperation, most theory assumes that individuals play dilemma games in all social contexts. However, real-world agents may participate in a diversity of interactions, not all of which present dilemmas.

How it works

• We develop an evolutionary game model on multilayer networks in which one layer supports the prisoner's dilemma game, while the other follows constant-selection dynamics, representing biased but...
• Our theoretical analysis reveals that coupling a social dilemma layer to a non-dilemmatic constant-selection layer robustly enhances cooperation in many cases, across different multilayer networks, updating...
• These findings suggest that embedding individuals within diverse networked settings—even those unrelated to direct social dilemmas—can be a principled approach to engineering cooperation in socio-ecological...