Whether or not to change strategy depends not only on the personal success of
each individual, but also on the success of others. Using this as motivation,
we study the evolution of cooperation in games that describe social dilemmas,
where the propensity to adopt a different strategy depends both on individual
fitness as well as on the strategies of neighbors. Regardless of whether the
evolutionary process is governed by pairwise or group interactions, we show
that plugging into the "wisdom of groups" strongly promotes cooperative
behavior. The more the wider knowledge is taken into account the more the
evolution of defectors is impaired. We explain this by revealing a dynamically
decelerated invasion process, by means of which interfaces separating different
domains remain smooth and defectors therefore become unable to efficiently
invade cooperators. This in turn invigorates spatial reciprocity and
establishes decentralized decision making as very beneficial for resolving
social dilemmas.Comment: 8 two-column pages, 7 figures; accepted for publication in Scientific
Report
