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The N-Player Trust Game and its Replicator Dynamics
Trust is a fundamental concept that underpins the coherence and resilience of
social systems and shapes human behavior. Despite the importance of trust as a
social and psychological concept, the concept has not gained much attention
from evolutionary game theorists. In this paper, an N-player trust-based social
dilemma game is introduced. While the theory shows that a society with no
untrustworthy individuals would yield maximum wealth to both the society as a
whole and the individuals in the long run, evolutionary dynamics show this
ideal situation is reached only in a special case when the initial population
contains no untrustworthy individuals. When the initial population consists of
even the slightest number of untrustworthy individuals, the society converges
to zero trusters, with many untrustworthy individuals. The promotion of trust
is an uneasy task, despite the fact that a combination of trusters and
trustworthy trustees is the most rational and optimal social state. This paper
presents the game and results of replicator dynamics in a hope that researchers
in evolutionary games see opportunities in filling this critical gap in the
literature