Moderate Diversity of activation thresholds promotes cooperation in the Threshold Public Good Games

Abstract

AbstractSocieties face various collective actions which posits social dilemmas, in which a certain number of group members must act cooperatively in order to reach a collective goal. Such social dilemmas are often modelled as Threshold Public Good Games, in which the collective goal is reached successfully if the number of cooperative decisions reaches a threshold. Because cooperation is often a costly act, to coordinate such actions actors can attempt to communicate, to ensure that cooperative decisions are only made once the chances of reaching the goal, thus meeting the threshold is secured. Here we focus on the distribution of activation thresholds in societies, which captures the dynamics of peer pressure and the interaction between different levels of selfish and cooperative behaviours. Here we show that moderate diversity of activation thresholds favours cooperation under wide range of parameters.