Aspiration-induced reconnection in spatial public-goods game

¹ School of Mathematical Science, Anhui University - Hefei, 230039, PRC
² Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China - Hefei, 230026, PRC
³ School of Physics, Nankai University - Tianjin, 300071, PRC

^a haifeng3@mail.ustc.edu.cn
^b zhenwang@mail.nankai.edu.cn
^c bhwang@ustc.edu.cn

Received: 11 December 2010
Accepted: 9 March 2011

Abstract

In this letter, we introduce an aspiration-induced reconnection mechanism into the spatial public-goods game. A player will reconnect to a randomly chosen player if its payoff acquired from the group centered on the neighbor does not exceed the aspiration level. We find that an intermediate aspiration level can promote cooperation best. This optimal phenomenon can be explained by a negative feedback effect, namely, intermediate aspiration level is able to result in a weak peak of reconnection, which will effectively change the downfall of cooperators and facilitate the fast spreading of cooperation. While insufficient reconnection and excessive reconnection induced by low and high aspiration levels are not conductive to such an effect. Moreover, we find that the intermediate aspiration level can lead to the heterogeneous distribution of degree, which will be beneficial to the evolution of cooperation.