Heterogeneous investments induced by emotions promote cooperation in public goods games

¹ School of Business, Hunan University of Science and Technology - Xiangtan 411201, China

^(a) grzh661205@163.com (corresponding author)

Received: 18 November 2021
Accepted: 3 January 2022

Abstract

Emotion plays an important role in heterogeneous investments and has some direct effects on the cooperation behaviour of a player in a public goods game (PGG). How this irrational factor affects the heterogeneous investments and what level of cooperation is present in players with emotions are still unknown to us. Here, the heterogeneous investments induced by emotions into a PGG were introduced. The emotional index was firstly quantified by considering a memory-cumulative effect, and then an investment formula was proposed based on this emotional index. At last, the effect of emotions on the cooperation behaviour in a PGG was investigated. Results show that the heterogeneous investments induced by emotions can improve cooperation significantly in a PGG, and that an increase of the memory length, the emotional increment, or the memory discounting factor can improve the cooperation level.