Game Theoretical Interactions of Moving Agents

Game theory has been one of the most successful quantitative concepts to describe social interactions, their strategical aspects, and outcomes. Among the payoff matrix quantifying the result of a social interaction, the interaction conditions have been varied, such as the number of repeated interactions, the number of interaction partners, the possibility to punish defective behavior etc. While an extension to spatial interactions has been considered early on such as in the "game of life", recent studies have focussed on effects of the structure of social interaction networks. However, the possibility of individuals to move and, thereby, evade areas with a high level of defection, and to seek areas with a high level of cooperation, has not been fully explored so far. This contribution presents a model combining game theoretical interactions with success-driven motion in space, and studies the consequences that this may have for the degree of cooperation and the spatio-temporal dynamics in the population. It is demonstrated that the combination of game theoretical interactions with motion gives rise to many self-organized behavioral patterns on an aggregate level, which can explain a variety of empirically observed social behaviors

Exploring Sources of Punitiveness Among German Citizens

Prior research examining punitive attitudes has typically focused on the United States and citizens' support for the death penalty or American "gettough" criminal policies. Yet, little is known as to how punitive attitudes and their sources vary internationally. Using Germany as a case study, this article expands the scope of punitiveness research by examining how factors typically examined in American studies, such as cynicism, institutional trust, law and order culture, and antiminority attitudes, relate to citizen beliefs about punishment in a different cultural context. Findings suggest that distrust of the judicial system, political prioritization of law and order, and antiminority attitudes predict citizens' support for severe punishment as an effective crime-reduction technique. Implications and directions for future research are highlighted.No Full Tex