Strategically positioning non-competitive individuals can rescue cooperation in scale-free networks

Abstract

Abstract Cooperation rescue in populations has long been a challenging problem, and previous studies have suggested that strategically placing cooperators in important positions in structured populations at the initial moment can obtain the opportunity of cooperation expansion. How to effectively lay out the location and place personalized nodes occupies a very important position in solving social dilemmas. However, most previous studies have focused on how the distribution of initial cooperators or defectors in homogeneous groups affects evolutionary outcomes, and relatively few studies have examined the placement of individuals with invariant heterogeneous characteristics. To enrich this research, we extend the cooperation rescue model to investigate the importance of the positional layout of two types of individuals with heterogeneous social value orientation characteristics in BA scale-free networks. Our study specifically investigates the impact of the distribution of non-competitive individuals on cooperation. We introduce non-competitive individuals into a BA scale-free network with only competitive individuals using different ranking rules. Our findings demonstrate that the presence of non-competitive individuals can promote cooperation. Furthermore, we determine the minimum number of nodes required to sustain cooperation under different ranking rules. In summary, our study emphasizes the importance of non-competitive individuals being placed in positions of importance for cooperation to flourish.