Central governance based on monitoring and reporting solves the collective-risk social dilemma

Monitoring and reporting incorrect acts are pervasive for maintaining human cooperation, but in theory it is unclear how they influence each other. To explore their possible interactions we consider spatially structured population where individuals face the collective-risk social dilemma. In our minimal model cooperator players report defection according to the loss of their interests. In parallel we assume a monitoring institution that monitors all group member and identifies wrong behavior with a certain probability. In response to these feedbacks a sanctioning institution develops punishment schemes by imposing fines on related defector players stochastically. By means of Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the introduction of monitoring and reporting mechanisms can greatly promote the evolution of cooperation and there exists a sudden change of the cooperation level by varying model parameters, which can lead to an outbreak of cooperation for solving the collective-risk social dilemma.Comment: 6 figure

Evolution of Global Cooperation in Multi-Level Threshold Public Goods Games With Income Redistribution

Income redistribution is a feasible means to adjust the income among individuals, which could reduce the gap between the rich and the poor and realize the social equity. By means of taxation and public services, the income could be transferred from some individuals to others directly or indirectly. We study how income redistribution affects the evolution of global cooperation through proposing a multi-level threshold public goods game model and introducing two kinds of income redistribution mechanisms. We find that both of the income redistribution mechanisms promote global cooperation. Furthermore, the global income redistribution is more in favor of the emergence of global cooperative behaviors than the local income redistribution mechanism. On the other hand, the fixation time of global cooperation is sharply shortened after introducing income redistribution mechanisms. In threshold public goods games, only when the amount of collected public goods reaches a certain threshold, the income of individuals can be guaranteed. Hence, the influences of thresholds of different levels on strategies are investigated in the paper

Distinct mental trainings differentially affect altruistically motivated, norm motivated, and self-reported prosocial behaviour

Global challenges such as climate change or the refugee crises emphasize the necessity of altruism and cooperation. In a large-scale 9-month intervention study, we investigated the malleability of prosociality by three distinct mental trainings cultivating attention, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive skills. We assessed numerous established measures of prosociality that capture three core facets: Altruistically motivated behaviours, norm motivated behaviours, and self-reported prosociality. Results of multiple time point confirmatory factor analyses support the validity and temporal stability of this model. Furthermore, linear mixed effects models reveal differential effects of mental trainings on the subcomponents of prosociality: Only training care and compassion effectively boosted altruistically motivated behaviour. No effects were revealed for norm-based behaviour. Self-reported prosociality increased with all training modules; this increase was, however, unrelated to changes in task-based measures of altruistic behaviour. These findings corroborate our motivation-based framework of prosociality, challenge economic views of fixed preferences by showing that socio-affective training boosts altruism, and inform policy makers and society about how to increase global cooperation