Evolutionary consequences of behavioral diversity
Abstract
Access to a diversity of behavioral choices makes social dynamics rich and difficult to analyze. Individuals are rarely constrained to a binary choice between "cooperate" or "defect," as many theoretical treatments assume. Here we use game theory to ask what social behaviors will emerge in populations as the number of behavioral choices grows. We show that simple strategies, where players do not vary their behavior much at all, can nonetheless be successful, and that access to a broader range of behavioral choices can cause a population to evolve toward lower levels of cooperation. Finally, we show that access to greater choice in rock-paper-scissors games inevitably leads to behavioral diversity, with players using strategies that make use of all possible choices.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- November 2016
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1608990113
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1606.01401
- Bibcode:
- 2016PNAS..113E7003S
- Keywords:
-
- Quantitative Biology - Populations and Evolution;
- Physics - Physics and Society
- E-Print:
- 26 pages, 4 figures