Conformity enhances network reciprocity in evolutionary social dilemmas

The pursuit of highest payoffs in evolutionary social dilemmas is risky and sometimes inferior to conformity. Choosing the most common strategy within the interaction range is safer because it ensures that the payoff of an individual will not be much lower than average. Herding instincts and crowd behavior in humans and social animals also compel to conformity on their own right. Motivated by these facts, we here study the impact of conformity on the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. We show that an appropriate fraction of conformists within the population introduces an effective surface tension around cooperative clusters and ensures smooth interfaces between different strategy domains. Payoff-driven players brake the symmetry in favor of cooperation and enable an expansion of clusters past the boundaries imposed by traditional network reciprocity. This mechanism works even under the most testing conditions, and it is robust against variations of the interaction network as long as degree-normalized payoffs are applied. Conformity may thus be beneficial for the resolution of social dilemmas.Comment: 8 two-column pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Journal of the Royal Society Interfac

Response to Privacy as a Public Good

In the spirit of moving forward the theoretical and empirical scholarship on privacy as a public good, this response addresses four issues raised by Professors Fairfield and Engel’s article: first, their depiction of individuals in groups; second, suggestions for clarifying the concept of group; third, an explanation of why the platforms on which groups exist and interact needs more analysis; and finally, the question of what kind of government intervention might be necessary to protect privacy as a public good

Everybody Wants to Belong: Comparing the Relative Impact of Social Capital on Happiness at an International Level

Subjective well-being has become increasingly more important as a guide for policy and welfare. This paper uses data from the World Bank Indicators and the World Values Survey to look at the intricate relationship between subjective well-being data, social capital, and the relative nature of human happiness. Subjective well-being data has recently become widely accepted in economics research and analyzed using econometric methods. In this study, I look at specific aspects of social capital across countries to easily compare individuals within countries with a standardized scale. I look at economic determinants and social capital determinants and their impact on happiness. I conclude that when social capital is accounted for, the impact of the social capital determinants on happiness persist to be significant even when the objective and subjective economic determinants of happiness are included as well

Integrated rural development - The concept and its operation

Our paper explores, on a theoretical level, the reason for frequent failures of rural development policies and identifies some potential improvements in rural policy making in Europe. Our approach to des/integration concerns actors, resources, institutions, knowledge, the fundamental logic of development, and the interplay between two distinct levels of rural development: the level of policies, or central intervention; and the level of local aspirations aimed at improving everyday rural life. Along these lines, two characteristic systems of rural development – the central bureaucratic and the local heuristic – can be clearly identified. Ideally, these should work in co-operation, complementing each other, forming an integrated development system, where rural policy serves to (i) channel resources, establish strategic aims and development models in a top-down mode, and (ii) convey information and mediate social, economic, political interests in a bottom-up mode. However, lack of integration and divergence of interest can lead to dysfunction, conflict and dissipation within the system. We argue that rural development policies tend to fail because the central bureaucratic system imposes top-down control and objectives throughout the development process, thus failing to sufficiently promote the reconfiguration of local resources, which is better achieved through bottom-up processes and the local heuristic system. In other words, the tendency to disjunction between the two basic socio-political systems of rural development is the main reason for the failure of rural development policy. The paper offers analytical models of integrated and non-integrated rural development systems and illustrates the argument through some examples taken from the community initiatives and the pre-accession policies of the European Union. The study is in two halves. The first half elaborates the concept of ‘integrated rural development’. based on international literature. The second part offers a few new conceptions, as a contribution to the ‘new rural development theory’ and simple models of integrated and non-integrated development.Rural development, local development, rural policy, European Union, LEADER Programme, centre-periphery, local governance

Evolutionary games on graphs

Game theory is one of the key paradigms behind many scientific disciplines from biology to behavioral sciences to economics. In its evolutionary form and especially when the interacting agents are linked in a specific social network the underlying solution concepts and methods are very similar to those applied in non-equilibrium statistical physics. This review gives a tutorial-type overview of the field for physicists. The first three sections introduce the necessary background in classical and evolutionary game theory from the basic definitions to the most important results. The fourth section surveys the topological complications implied by non-mean-field-type social network structures in general. The last three sections discuss in detail the dynamic behavior of three prominent classes of models: the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Rock-Scissors-Paper game, and Competing Associations. The major theme of the review is in what sense and how the graph structure of interactions can modify and enrich the picture of long term behavioral patterns emerging in evolutionary games.Comment: Review, final version, 133 pages, 65 figure

Restoring spatial cooperation with myopic agents in a three-strategy social dilemma

Introducing strategy complexity into the basic conflict of cooperation and defection is a natural response to avoid the tragedy of the common state. As an intermediate approach, quasi-cooperators were recently suggested to address the original problem. In this study, we test its vitality in structured populations where players have fixed partners. Naively, the latter condition should support cooperation unambiguously via enhanced network reciprocity. However, the opposite is true because the spatial structure may provide a humbler cooperation level than a well-mixed population. This unexpected behavior can be understood if we consider that at a certain parameter interval the original prisoner's dilemma game is transformed into a snow-drift game. If we replace the original imitating strategy protocol by assuming myopic players, the spatial population becomes a friendly environment for cooperation. This observation is valid in a huge region of parameter space. This study highlights that spatial structure can reveal a new aspect of social dilemmas when strategy complexity is introduced.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Applied Mathematics and Computatio

Income and happiness: Evidence, explanations and economic implications

There is now a great deal of micro-econometric evidence, both cross-section and panel, showing that income is positively correlated with well-being. Yet the famous Easterlin paradox shows essentially no change in average happiness at the country level, despite spectacular rises in per capita GDP. We argue that survey well-being questions are indeed good proxy measures of utility, and resolve the Easterlin paradox by appealing to income comparisons: these can be to others (social comparisons) or to oneself in the past (habituation). We review a substantial amount of econometric, experimental and neurological literature consistent with comparisons, and then spell out the implications for a wide range of economic issues.income ; happiness ; social comparisons ; habituation ; economic policy

How Do Aspirations Matter?

This paper explores the complex roles of aspirations in relation to human development, drawing upon the capability approach. The paper examines the notion of feasibility of aspirations and the impact feasibility judgements have on aspiration formation and aspiration realisation, in terms of both capabilities and functionings. In particular this paper extends existing theory by building on Hart’s (2004, 2012) dynamic multi-dimensional model of aspiration and Hart’s (2012) aspiration set. The theorization builds on empirical work, undertaken in the UK, seeking to understand pupil’s aspirations on leaving school and college at age 17-19 as well as reviewing wider empirical and theoretical literature in this field. The discussion contributes to capability theory by extending understanding regarding first, the way that aspirations are connected to capabilities and functionings, secondly, the processes by which aspirations are converted into capabilities and thirdly, how certain capabilities become functionings. The paper reflects on the criteria that inform choices about the cultivation and selection of different aspirations on individual and collective bases. )n concluding the paper the question of ‘how do aspirations matter?’ is addressed. Ultimately an argument is made for the need to ‘reclaim’ a rich multi-dimensional concept of aspiration in order to pursue human development and flourishing for all