Imitation and Cooperation in Different Helping Games

The relation between imitation and cooperation in evolutionary settings presents complex aspects. From one hand, in any environment where egoists are favored over cooperators by selection processes, imitation should lead to a further spreading of the former ones due to the combined processes of individual selection and replication of successful behaviors. On the other hand, if cooperators succeed in forming clusters of mutual helping individuals, imitation may have a positive effect on cooperation by further reproducing this locally dominant behavior. This paper explores the relationship between imitation and cooperation by mean of a simulation model based on two different Helping games. Our model shows that different imitation mechanisms can favor the spreading of cooperation under a wide range of conditions. Moreover, the interplay of imitation and other factors — e.g. the possibility of performing “conditional associations” strategies — can further foster the success of cooperative agents.Imitation, Evolution of Cooperation, Helping Game, Indirect Reciprocity

The emergence of institutions for the management of the commons

In this paper we present an abstract replication of institutional emergence patterns observed in common pool resource (CPR) problems. We used the ADICO grammar of institutions as the basic structure to model both agents' strategies and institutions. Through an evolutionary process, agents modify their behaviours and eventually establish a management institution for their CPR system, leading to significant benefits both for them and for the commons as a whole. We showed that, even if our model has a high level of abstraction, by taking an evolutionary perspective and using the ADICO structure we are able to observe common institutional patterns. We confirm that institutions do indeed contribute to the sustainable management of common pool resource systems

Ressources communes

Les ressources communes sont des ressources naturelles ou artificielles partagées par différents utilisateurs ; l’exploitation de ces ressources crée une rivalité, souvent (mais pas nécessairement) à l’origine de leur dégradation, voire de leur destruction. Cet article présente brièvement la théorie des ressources communes développée ces vingt dernières années par Elinor Ostrom et ses collègues, et l’illustre par plusieurs études de cas de systèmes d’irrigation du nord de l’Italie (Lombardie et Vallée d’Aoste). Il démontre que différents mécanismes sociaux, tels que les valeurs partagées et le réseau social existant au sein de la communauté d’utilisateurs, influent sensiblement sur l’efficacité des systèmes institutionnels de gestion des ressources communes.Common-pool resources are natural or man-made resources shared among different users, a condition that produces a competition for their utilization leading often (although not necessarily) to their degradation or even to their destruction. This paper shortly discusses the "theory of the commons", as developed in the last 20 years by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues, and illustrates it by mean of case studies regarding a number of irrigation systems in Northern Italy (Lombardy and Vallée d’Aoste). We show that that different social mechanisms, like the shared values e the social network existing inside the community of users, play a significant role in influencing the outcomes of the institutional schemes for the commons management

Pillars of Trust: An Experimental Study on Reputation and Its Effects

This paper presents the results of laboratory experiments on the relevance of reputation for trust and cooperation in social interaction. We have extended a repeated investment game by adding new treatments where reputation is taken more explicitly into account than before. We then compared treatments where the investor and the trustee rate each other and treatments where the investor and the trustee were rated by a third party. The results showed that: (i) third party reputation positively affects cooperation by encapsulating trust; (ii) certain differences in the reputation mechanism can generate different cooperation outcomes. These results have interesting implications for the recent sociological debate on the normative pillars of markets

Peer Review of Reviewers: The Author's Perspective

The aim of this study was to investigate the opinion of authors on the overall quality and effectiveness of reviewers' contributions to reviewed papers. We employed an on-line survey of thirteen journals which publish articles in the field of life, social or technological sciences. Responses received from 193 authors were analysed using a mixed-effects model in order to determine factors deemed the most important in the authors' evaluation of the reviewers. Qualitative content analysis of the responses to open questions was performed as well. The mixed-effects model revealed that the authors' assessment of the competence of referees strongly depended on the final editorial decision and that the speed of the review process was influential as well. In Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis on seven questions detailing authors' opinions, perception of review speed remained a significant predictor of the assessment. In addition, both the perceived competence and helpfulness of the reviewers significantly and positively affected the authors' evaluation. New models were used to re-check the value of these two factors and it was confirmed that the assessment of the competence of reviewers strongly depended on the final editorial decision

A few bad apples are enough: an agent-based peer review game

Following previous agent-based research on peer review, this paper presents a game theory-inspired model that looks at peer review as a cooperation dilemma. We tested different scientist behaviours and network topologies in order to understand their implications on the quality, efficiency and type of resource distribution in the science system. We tested random, scale-free and small world networks connecting scientists and three types of referee behaviour: self-interested (providing unreliable opinion), normative referees (providing reliable opinion) and conformist reviewers (conforming to other referees' behaviour). Preliminary results indicate that differences in the combination of referee behaviour have significant impact on the quality of the process and that the percentage of conformists is one of the most crucial model parameters